Immanuel Kant is talked about a lot in the world of Philosophy, but what a lot of people aren't aware of (including me, until I did some reading) is that Kant was a bit of a sexist and a bit of a racist (see 'A Feminist Kant' below). So, perhaps approach him with a critical eye in your writing.
In today's edition, we'll be looking at the school of thought within Moral Philosophy called Deontology.
Deontology or deontological ethics is essentially the opposite of consequentialism, which we discussed last week, and is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be determined by a set of rules that say whether it is good or bad. You might have heard of this before as duty-based ethics. For example, a Hindu might believe that eating beef is wrong; this can be defined as deontological ethics because whether beef is right or wrong is based on a set of rules outlined by Hinduism.
We have come across Immanuel Kant (1724-1784) before in our Enlightenment saga, when we looked at rationalism and in our Epistemology saga when we looked at idealism. Kant, it seems, was everywhere when it came to modern Western philosophy, and poked his head in the corners of epistemology, metaphysics, political theory, aesthetics, and ethics.
Kantianism refers to Kant's deontological ethical theory that developed out of his Enlightenment rationalism, which states that individual's must act out of duty and that the motives of the person doing an action determine whether it is right or wrong. Central to his theory was his idea of the "categorical imperative"; that for an action to be permissible, it should be obeyed in all circumstances and not contradict itself in different situations or when done by different people. In other words, that action should be an end in itself (it is desirable in itself, rather than done as a means to an end).
Additionally, Kant always saw people as ends in themselves, rather than as means to an end. He believed that because human beings are capable of rationality and considering the morality of actions, we are morally valuable.
When applied to some of Kant's more questionable theories about people of different races and genders (seriously, some of the stuff he said was used as foundation for colonialist justification and some misogyny), it seems that Kant actually might have contradicted himself – if every human is morally valuable, certainly that gives grounds to argue for moral equality for every person.
What I've described here is hardly comprehensive on Kant and Deontology, but hopefully this opens up a door for you to explore the topics yourself further or at least to mention Kant and deontology in your GAMSAT essays :)
