University:
Seton Hall University
Course:
RELS1503 | Christian ethics
Academic year:

2024
Views:

233

Pages:

2
Author:

Andrea B.

Andrea Borg Professor Ethics 10/21/21 Journal During class time I found this discussions and sort of debates very interesting about this philosopher, there are some points in the debate where I believe Kant was right, however, there were some phrases where I disagreed with what he believed was right. For example, in class there was a phrase that came on the board saying something like “helping a homeless man for your own satisfaction” and Kant believed that it shouldn’t be universal because it is for your own self-interest. Personally, I think something like this should be universal because it is not a bad habit at all to give to the people in need for your own satisfaction, this way you are helping the homeless man as well as yourself as you can get some joy out of it. The reason why Kant is thinking like this is because I believe he is trying to protect the clarity of moral decisions by separating them from everything else. He wants actions and decisions to be universal as long as they aren’t for self-interest. For example, another example was “don’t lie” which he believed should be universal because it is not good to lie especially when you are going to lie for your self interest but could hurt others at the same time. This is a tricky one because to some extent I agree to what he is saying but also sometimes it is good to lie at some circumstances, like for example let’s say your best friend killed someone and the police come to question you about it and you lie saying it wasn’t him, yes you are saving him but you are also putting other people in danger. Overall, Kant and Hume are two very interesting philosophers who have a completely different way of thinking which class together in what should be universal and what shouldn’t. Personally, I’m leaning more on the side of Hume because I feel like I think and believe the same way as him for what I think should be universal, doing stuff for your self-interest isn’t a bad thing as long as you aren’t hurting someone else.