Setting the state for Kant

--Are there any acts that are wrong, regardless of the consequences? (Are consequences all that matter?)

--Case: Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki

--intentionally killing innocent people

(murder).

Kant’s Moral Theory

• The central concept of morality:

• Obligation

• What is the nature of a moral imperative?

– Universal– Categorical

Formula of Universal Law

“Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law.” (128)

Application in a particular case

--determine your maxim

--formulate the maxim as a universal law

--determine whether you could will that law

The lying promise

• Maxim:

• Universal law:

• Can I will it?

Formula of Humanity as an End

• “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only” (137).

• Two kinds of value: price, dignity– Rational agents have unconditional value:

dignity. This commands respect.

• The case of the lying promise.

Problems for Kant’s Theory

• Is it always morally wrong to lie?

• Cases of conflicting obligations?– “Do not lie”– “Do not facilitate murder”

• Non-human Animals?

Kant’s insight

• Moral imperatives are universal

• Human beings deserve moral respect