Discussion 1Stephanie" According to Kant, Categorical Imperative first is to act consistently and second to treat others with same respect that others capable of making there own choices."(Thames, 201

Discussion 1

Stephanie

" According to Kant, Categorical Imperative first is to act consistently and second to treat others with same respect that others capable of making there own choices."(Thames, 2018). In the show Bones there is a character named Cam, who gets her identity stolen and tries to fight legally to catch the person who stole all her information and regain her identity. When her co workers find out Cam askes that out of respect for her to let her deal with gaining her information back. Normally everyone would listen and give her the respect but Angela disregard her request and digs deeper to find out who stole her identity. According to Kant this action I believe would be considered immoral. I agree with Kant on Angela's actions because she went behind Cam's back to help find the person who stole the identity. Her intentions were good and the outcome was even good in this episode but how she went about finding the person and information to help Cam out wasn't. Because Cam wanted to be able to go through all the right legal steps to get her identity back with out the help of her team . Since Angela disagreed with Cam she went ahead and tried to find the information. This goes against treating others with respect of making their own choices.    

Charnece

Immanuel Kant explained that Categorical Imperative as a duty to respect the rational action by making sure our reason for action are consistent with others acting the same way and to treat with inherit value.(Kant 2008 p.4). One of my best friends has a bother that is locked up in prison to some people what he did could be justified as moral and to some it would be considered unjust. Her parents own a small and simple grocery store. One day the store got robbed and both parents were injured severely. Once he found out what happen instead of calling the police he decided to handle the situation in his own way. His decision caused him to end up in more trouble than he intended. I think Kant would say this was a immoral thing to do. Although his intentions were good the action he performed lead him into more trouble. Every action has a consequence.

Discussion 2

Aaron

After reading the text and watching the video I don’t believe we can define morality like you would a math equation. It is interesting that Kant was a student of science and a practitioner of Christian faith, they would seem to contradict themselves. His principles seem to contradict themselves also, for example, I do like his belief that morality can be defined through learned principles and there is a certain freedom to that logic. It would seem that there is no defined set of guidelines you must obey that someone else decided on. But, his universal law seems to contradict that idea by defining a rule that should be followed. For myself I believe that morality is defined on a case by case basis based on the circumstances that are taking place. I think that in some cases your natural instincts take over at some point, you don’t always have time to establish how you are going to morally define the situation through a set of guiding principles. As the video stated the problem with Kant’s theory to me seems to be there is no account for any kind of moral dilemma.

Robert 

I feel that rational rules can help us define morality, but that morality is subjective based on circumstance or situation. Let me preface this by saying that I believe certain actions to be wrong regardless of the situation, but my basis for these rules would be founded in my religious beliefs and wouldn't affect most of our daily choices. I do feel that, as rational beings, we could create a system of right and wrong that can be agreed upon universally, however, we don't always behave or think rationally. It id difficult to think in terms of absolute right and wrong. Black and white. Most people, when presented with a situation where a moral decision must be made, don't take the time to sit back and work out the logical moral action. Especially when outside factors create a situation in which the moral decision isn't obvious. Let's look at the situation provided in the movie where a murderer is chasing someone and the murderer stops and asks which way they went. If you believe the moral action would be to tell the truth because you would want everyone to tell you the truth, then your action leads to this persons murder. Did you kill the person? No, but you could have prevented the murder. Do you lie and prevent his death? Yes, but now how can you expect others to not lie to you when you can justify lying. Do you refrain from telling him anything? Technically, if he asked you where the man went and you say nothing, to me this is the same as lying since you knew where he went and didn't provide the information whenthe man asked. Basically lying by omission. Lying is immoral, but we can't look at just the action by itself. Just like we can't look at the consequences of an action to justify whether the action was moral. We must look at both (as well as the reason behind why the action was taken) to determine if the action was moral. A Kantian could justify lying about where the man went by saying that whenever someone is being chased by a murderer, it is permissable to lie to save a person's life. This wouldn't create a contradiction since this wouldn't apply to many situations meaning most people would always tell the truth. But, most would agree that the means don't justify the ends, so lying would be immoral.