In
class this week we discussed Kant's three propositions on duty. Most
interesting to me was the third proposition regarding reverence for the law.
It states that duty is a necessity to act out of reverence for the law.
Essentially trying to say a rational law is a law that everyone believes
to be true, and thus you believe it as well. Basically the golden rule of
treating others the way you want to be treated. This relates to the
supreme law of all morality, otherwise known as categorical imperatives. One
formulation stating, "act in such a way that you can will the maxim of
your action as universal law. In other words, one can determine why an
action is rationally good if you think that it is an action that everyone
universally "ought" to do. This is the point where I began to
have a problem with Katian philosophy. Kant says we have to make moral
decisions based on reason alone because we do not know the consequences, but I
do not think this is possible to make a moral decision based purely on reason.
On top of this I cannot ignore the consequences even if I am not sure
what they are going to be. More
importantly I think moral decisions are based on your experiences and the
society you are living in, not reason alone. Different societies overtime
have had different moral beliefs based upon the time they were living in and
their surroundings. For example, in many ancient societies such as the
Mayans or Aztecs it was customary to offer a human sacrifice. I do not
consider the actions of these people and the killings they committed to be
immoral. These people developed their own belief systems or religion as a
result of their experiences on earth, and they constructed their own morals
based upon those experiences. Therefore
I think many morals are functions of the time we are living in. Maybe it may be against the golden rule to
kill someone because you yourself do not want to be killed, but why does that
make it an immoral action? In society
today I wonder why the idea that killing another person is immoral. I do think the reasons for killing can
sometimes be immoral, but where did the idea originate that killing another
human is immoral? My answer to this
would be that we developed this idea that killing another person is immoral
because of various religions that developed in society through human experience.
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ReplyDeleteLike you, I totally disagree with Kant’s claim that we have to make moral decisions based on reason because we do not know the consequences. Personally, I make all of my decisions based on the possible consequences. It is true that I may not always be aware of the consequences but I think it is naïve to not even take them into consideration. I also think it is impossible to construct a universal way of how to make a decision because like you stated everyone has dealt with different experiences and societies. Society definitely has a major impact one’s choices and beliefs. Thinking about society’s influences caused me consider that religion has had some impact on the beliefs that killing someone is immoral. However, immediately after accepting this conclusion, all I could think about was the countless killings that are written about in the Bible, Quran, and other religious texts. For example, the Quran instructs Muslims to kill non-Muslims which will lead to eternal rewards. Religion has too many contradictions about murder therefore I do not think it is responsible for the idea that murder is immoral. I also could not help but think about the people that are not religious. About 14 percent of the world’s population is nonreligious. If the assumption is that religion makes people believe that murder is immoral that means 1.1. billion nonreligious people are walking around, thinking that murder is moral. Hopefully that is not the case.
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