Immanuel Kant and His Contribution to the Study of Business Ethics
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Immanuel Kant and his contribution to the study of business ethics
Immanuel Kant focuses mainly on the role of duty. He believes that actions can be in accord with duty or be from duty. Duty is defined as an action which we are obligated to perform out of respect for the moral law. Moral law is practical reason, which is in every rational person, though some people are more aware of it than others. Moral law is having the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, and an inner conviction that we should do what is good. The concept of duty includes good will. Good will is good without qualification; it is good in itself and good through willing alone. It comes from an instinct within us and cannot be denied. Good will can be seen in moderation, self-control and sober reflection.
There are things in everyday life that have to do with duty. We are innately born with the capacity to learn right from wrong. Every single human being is molded by their parents, teachers, and anyone else who is a part of their life, from there on is how we determine what is good and what is evil. It is my duty to preserve my life. This idea works because there are many people there are many people who hate their lives and yet they will still keep their life dear to them. These people are not doing it for self satisfaction; it is just their duty to live on. A man who longs for death because his life is full of disappointment and misery, he still preserves his life even without loving it. This does not come from inclination or fear, it springs from duty.
Kant discusses the two laws that are produced by reason. The first law is the hypothetical imperative; a rule of action for achieving that end. For an example if you wish to buy a new house, then you must determine which houses are available to buy. There is no way that it can be hypothetical because our actions cannot be moral on the ground of some restrictive desire or goal. Morality depends on an unconditional explanation of ones duty. The second law is the categorical imperative, there are a few ways that Kant tries to describe this imperative to ultimately merge this moral theory altogether so if it possesses a sensible will, and people are set off in the native order of things. Firstly, one must act according to their maxim; believing that it will eventually become a universal law. Secondly, you must act as if your maxim is to become a universal law, and thirdly, for your maxim to treat humanity fairly, yourself and others in the end must know this moral law, otherwise it fails the universality test. For an example, consider the person who needs to borrow a pair of shoes. The maxim that could be elicited is “when I need a pair of shoes, I will borrow them, and promise to give them back, even though I dont have intensions of doing so.” When we implement the universality test to this maxim, it becomes definite that if everyone were to operate in this mode, the meaning of promising would be debilitated. How can the borrower make a promise when his/her maxim is that there is no such thing as a promise? His/her actions are defeated by the universality test.
The first altercation for the establishment of the categorical imperative can be thought of in this way; in order to be good, remove inclination and contemplation of any distinct goal from our motivation to act. Our act cannot be good if it is derived from subjective impulse. It also cannot be good because if it delves for some particular goal that might promote the good we seek or could come about through an event that could have been arranged although it was really coincidental. We must draw away from all hoped for effects. If we discard