What Role Does Virtue Ethics Play In Kantian Ethics

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As we were discussing about career paths and passion in one of my classes last semester, I could recall from one of my classmates feeling very irresponsive about his career path. As he decided to share his opinions, he felt compelled by his parents to accomplish a very specific duty that runs back in the history and the background of their family. His passion was to go into sports management but his parents wanted him to become doctor. As he was sharing this, the first thing that came in my mind was the categorical imperative for Kant’s ethics which is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral. By definition, categorical imperative is an unconditional moral obligation that is binding in all circumstances and is not dependent …show more content…

For example, helping a blind pedestrian crossed the street because you feel pity and sorry is NOT considered a moral action by the ethical theory of duty by Kant. Furthermore, the action of helping a grandmother climb the stairs because you want to impress or show kindness is not seen as moral action. On the other hand, our actions can solely become moral if we do something out of our own sense, the sense of duty because we tell ourselves “we ought to help the elderly….” Kant used duty as a powerful tool but help people make decisions on reasoning. He believes that one must decide through reasoning which is the most important imperative to adhere to, but under no circumstances we should get rid of the idea of duties and make usage of our emotions and feelings as deciding factors in our …show more content…

In addition to that, Kant ethics theory argues that to will is to choose, voluntarily, to act in that way but a good will is the product of its relationship to duty. Duty brings the idea of actions we are obliged to perform. Those duties can either be moral or not moral. Moral actions that we perform are synonym of good will because they are voluntary as the Kantian ethical quotes “We ought to do” a good will is the primary steps for an ethical life and without it our actions cannot have moral worth and the duty we are obliged to perform makes us think of those actions. And those actions must be done from duty to have any