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A Simplified Version of Kant’s Ethics: Onora O’Neill

A Simplified Version of Kant’s Ethics: Onora O’Neill. Normative application of Kantian moral theory.

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A Simplified Version of Kant’s Ethics: Onora O’Neill

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  1. A Simplified Version of Kant’s Ethics: Onora O’Neill • Normative application of Kantian moral theory. • Third Formulation of the Categorical Imperative: “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.”

  2. What is a maxim? • A maxim is a principle that underlies or informs an act or set of actions. • Several acts may satisfy the underlying maxim or principle. • Famine Example: “Try to reduce the risk or severity of world hunger”

  3. Several possible actions/policies will satisfy the requirements of the principle • Individual contributions/government aid/volunteering

  4. Using Others as Mere Means • “We use others as mere means if what we do reflects some maxim to which they could not in principle consent.” (134) • Deception (actual maxim must be kept secret) • Coercion

  5. Treating Others as Ends in Themselves: • Avoid using others as mere means. • Wholly rational and autonomous – if such beings existed we would only need to avoid using them as mere means.

  6. Justice and Beneficence • Perfect duties are those that we have in virtue of someone’s having a rights claim against us. • Imperfect duties generate obligations, but these obligations are to individuals in general and not to any specific individual.

  7. Justice to the Vulnerable in Kantian Thinking • “Justice requires action that conforms (at least outwardly) to what could be done in a given situation while acting on maxims neither of deception nor coercion.”(136) • Further discussion of famine and justice pp.137-138 • “The basis for beneficent action is that we cannot without it, treat others of limited rationality and autonomy as ends in themselves.”(138)

  8. Justice to the Vulnerable (cont.) • Extreme deprivation curtails one’s ability to engage in autonomous action. • Our beneficence is not intended to merely make others happy, though an increase in autonomy may make others happier. • “When famines were not only far away, but nothing could be done to relieve them, beneficence or charity may well have begun—and stayed—at home. In a global village, the moral significance of distance has shrunk, and we may be able to affect the capacities for autonomous action of those who are far away.”(139)

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