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My view on Murder:

I think this quote by David Hume, from A Treatis of Human Nature (1740) sums up how I feel on it.

take any action allow'd to be vicious:wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existance that you call vice.... You can never find it, till you turn your reflexion into whats in your own heart, and find a sentiment of disapprobation that arises within you, toward this action. Here is a matter of fact: But Tis the object of feeling not reason.

The Ideas of Immanual Kant and Deantology * taken from a conversation I had about my morality.*

(*now part of my ever changing moral Code*)

Deantology is the idea of absolute duty to act in a particular way and the subscription to absolute laws of the universe. For instance I have always believed that a Lie cannot be told under any circumstances. We can only encount intentions not results for any action that means I cannot lie even to save my own life or that of another. But I can kill one person to save many, because preserving life is an absolute moral rule (*this is against Kant but a part of my exventational moral code so this is where one part of moral code differentiates from Kant the rest Gels).


Her Response:
and why can't you lie

My Respnse to her:

Because it is an absolute moral rule it shows disrespect to rational people

Her Response:
well what about irrational people?

My Response:

irrational people forfiet their rights therefore you can lie to them
(Although you ought to tell the truth to them regardless of rationality). But if a person is irrational for a moment you cannot lie a mentally handicapped person, you can lie to, to spare feelings, same with a child who is not yet rational. If we were to use the Matt example he violated an absolute moral rule, and he himself is rational right? So his lie no matter how insignificant shows lack of respect to your rationality.

Her Response:
yes i agree with that

My Response:
therefore he violated an absolute moral rule and has voided his right to be told the absolute truth from you here in lies the problem, (stop me if I am boring you): When all of society lies and voids that absolute moral rule, how can we function? Nobody will believe anybody else. its the same way with promises, which is why I am going to hold true with my moral code, and continue to keep them no matter what not because everyone else keeps their word but because I need to live in a way that premotes my own moral code, I need to live in a way that shows the world what it could be and maybe get people to live how they should

Her Response:

yeah that's good.. and i think there are many people who would like to live that way (including me ) but when it doesn't work? and it feels like you waste your time because basically you ARE.. uh it's a little.. discouraging

My Response:

I'd like to introduce you to a concept called Categorical Imparitives: a Categorical imparitive is something that you ought to do but not something that you have to. For instance I ought to always show up to class if I want to pass as an ends. This is called a Categorical Imparitive or a perfect duty. which is defined as something that we are always obliged to perform. another concept is the hypothetical Imparitive something that it would be good or meritorious to perform but it is not always required of us Categorical is more of a means to an end, meaning we ought to do it no matter what. We ought to do it no matter what but we are not bound to do so it comes down to whether or not we will uphold our end of this perfect duty. hypothetical imparatives, are therefore flawed, we say we ought to do something to help someone out, but we can choose not to, it is flawed from the onset.
Her Response:

yeah.. i guess

My Response:

another main concept is that it is wrong to treat someone as a means. meaning that we must always act in the light of rules that all of us can agree to. so basically it goes to the golden rule do unto others. You dont want me to steal from you and I dont want you to steal from me
but if I did steal from you, you would be upset and would want justice right? You would view it fair to steal back from me, but I wouldn't want this but because I already broke an absolute moral rule I will have voided my right to be treated with respect by you and it would be alright for you to take back what I took from you

Her Reponse:
well yeah.. because theres no respect in the relationship anymore cause the respect barrier has been broken or whatever

My Response:

this goes back to respecting eachother as rational people, who set out ends for ourselves, beings who act on reason.

Her Reponse:

so its like.. in the matt case, it's not right to lie to somebody, but if i did lie i would be like hey this is okay because he lies to me so you fully respect the people who fully respect you

My Response:
Exactly right, now getting back to the idea of using people as a means If you were to be with me (hypothetical) and I were to use you as a security blanket (aka a person I use for financial support but really contribute nothing back too, other then the flawed relationship) I would be using you as a means to my end which is always wrong. An absolute moral rule therefore is do not use people ever right? Now getting back to whether or not we have obligations to non rational people such as animals and children.... this is abit harder to explain. We have an obligation to never abuse animals because how we treat animals has been shown as a direct corilation to how we treat people. Like for instance if I were to kill a dog just for my own saddistic pleasure there is a higher likelihood of me being violent to people to satisfy my own saddistic pleasure. My moral obligation is therefore not to the dog, but to society as a whole to not harm the animal because I may therefore harm a human being later on.
Children are abit more dodgey. Most parents lie to thier kids about Santa Clause and such, or we lie about things like heaven and hell. (I call it a lie because we cannot verify scietifically that there is a heaven or a hell in that of itself.) Kant would say that this in itself is also wrong. We are violating the absolute moral rule that we cannot lie under any circumstances. So how should we deal with this situation? We ought to say, " Althought there is not a Santa Clause, we give presents to one another at this time of year to celebrate our family. And we ought to respect all other people not for reward of heaven or punishment of hell but because it is how we would like to be treated."

Here's where I differentiate from Kant: he says we are never justified in sacrificing one innocent life to save many innocent lives. Individual rights may not be violated for the sake of minimizing other casualties. I say one life is insurmountable in value but when compared to 2 lives, I would take numbers here because 2 lives whether we want to admit it or not have a higher value then 1 life

The case of a person trying to kill someone and you know where the person they want to kill you is.... Aka the Inquiring murderer. I would answer this the sameway Kant chooses to. There is no conflicting rules and Absolute duties. It might be wrong to permit the murder of an innocent person and it is wrong to lie. But Don't Lie is a perfect duty, but "helping others" is not. Only perfect duties are absolute, you do not have to lie to protect this person because it is not your duty.

So why be moral, to myself and to Kant this is like asking, " why be a person?" or "why be a rational being?" or "Why be free" The question is answers for you as soon as you ask it. Thus it is defeating to ask why should we be moral.

Her Reponse:

Its abit hard to understand but I agree with most of it.

To the C&T Regulars: What do you think of the ideas of Immanual Kant?

Morality is for those that have some innate need to be "shored up" to have the will to make choices and live with the consequences. Morality defines a black and white that does not exist -- morality is bunk.