Ethics paper 2^J Barry's suggestion - newman
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University of Arkansas *
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2103
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Philosophy
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Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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PHIL 2103 2/26/2023 Assigned Paper #2 : Barry’s suggestion You are mayor of a town. A terrorist, Trevor, has kidnapped a dozen innocent people (including women and children) from your community and has killed them in a painful manner (e.g., burning them alive). A member of your town council, Barry, tells you that Trevor's sister, Ignacia, lives in a nearby town and that Trevor loves Ignacia. Barry suggests that you (or your police force) kidnap Ignacia and kill her (in a relatively humane manner, viz. not by burning her alive) to "teach Trevor a lesson" and to get back at him for what he has done. Should you
do what Barry suggests? Immanuel Kant offers the categorical imperative, which is his ethical answer to what is fundamentally one’s moral duty. To understand Kant’s ideas and beliefs on our moral duty, I will examine the example above in terms of Kant’s two formulations: the Universal Law formulation and the Person as Ends formulation. Kant’s Universal Law formulation states, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you
can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”(Lee, Richard). Maxim, being a general principle that one acts on. While Kant does not explain what actions we must do or not do, he explains what maxims we must not act from. For example, because Trevor kidnapped and painfully killed innocent people, one suggests that I, the mayor, should kidnap and kill Trevor’s sister Ignacia to get back at him. According to the universal law formulation, Kant would say that
to act morally from a certain maxim, it must be possible that everyone act from this maxim. If I were to go and kill Trevor’s sister, the universal maxim would be that if someone ever killed someone, you are allowed to go and kill someone in order to get revenge. So, according to Kant, it would be wrong to act upon this maxim. Kant provides another formulation known as the Person as Ends Formulation. He states this as, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means” (Lee, Richard). The idea of treating one as a ‘mean’ is to act towards the person in order to achieve some personal gain. The idea of treating one as an ‘end’ is to treat a person’s ends as I treat my ends; This idea is
created to respect the needs and interests of another as being just as important as my own. So in the instance of if I should kill Trevor’s sister or not, Kant would argue that killing Trevor’s sister would be treating Trevor as a means to get personal revenge; therefore, you should not act upon Barry’s advice. PHIL 2103 2/26/2023
APPENDIX : Lee, Richard. “Kantian Ethical Theory.” Kantian Ethical Theory , University of Arkansas , 1998, https://rlee.hosted.uark.edu/ethics/kantian
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