Archive | Philosophy

“Act as a member of a kingdom of ends.” It means – So act as to behave in understanding that you and everyone else are of intrinsic value behave as befits members of a society in which everyone looks upon the good off another as having a value equal to his own and everyone behaves […]

Kant’s Second maxim is “So act as to treat humanity whether in thine own person or in that of any other, always as an end, and never as a means”. This law does not allow any one the privilege or right or committing suicide.

J.S. Mill’s Qualitative Altruistic Hedonism or Refined Utilitarianism is open to the following objection:

In the modern age, the best example of Rationalism is the rigorism of Kant. According to Kant, reason takes two forms (i) Speculative or pure reason and (ii) Practical reason. Analysing pure reason, Kant has determined and founded the limits of reason.

In order to elucidate this statement, Kant adopts the example of promise – breaking. If the law of promise breaking becomes universal, or in other words, if every one starts violating premises, then promise would no longer retain any meaning.

J.S. Mill is a Hedonist. He says, ‘The creed which accepts as the foundation of moral utility or the greatest happiness principle, I holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

On the one hand J.S. Mill popularised the Utilitarianism of his father James Mill and his friend Bentham and on the other hand, he continued his enquiry into truth. Consequently, Utilitarianism is that theory which treats of the principle of utility of maximum, happiness as the basis of morality and believes that actions are good […]

Rashdall calls his theory ideal Utilitarianism because according to him, pleasure is not the completely ultimate good, but only a part of it. In the words of Rashdall, “Morality consists in the promotion of true human good, but a good of which pleasure is only an element.”

Bentham’s Gross Utilitarianism is open to the following objects:-

Essay on the Quantitative Utilitarianism Theory of Bentham. According to Altruistic Hedonism, universal or general happiness i.e., the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the ultimate moral standard. J. Bentham (1748- 1832) and J.S. Mill (1806-73) advocate this view. But they differ in that Bentham recognizes only quantitative distinction of pleasure, whereas J.S. Mill […]

The word ‘Ethics’ is derived from the Greek adjective ‘ethica’ which literally means the science of customs or habits of men. It is the science of the habitual conduct of men which is the expression of settled disposition of the will or character.

The province or scope of Ethics is the range of its subject-matter. Ethics, as a normative science, seeks to define the moral ideal. It is not concerned with the nature, origin or development of human conduct, it is concerned with the ideal or standard to which our conduct should conform.

Before discussing whether Ethics to be a positive or normative science we must have a clear cut idea about what is science? Science may be defined a systematic investigation into a particular event or related events of nature. One of the important characters of science is that it must be a Systematic study. A systematic […]

Ethics is the science of the ideals related to human life. Ethics discusses the good and bad qualities of human behaviour by comparing it to these ideals. It informs man of the differences between good and bad, right and wrong, evil and virtue. It is the science of human conduct.

According to many scholars, including Pringle Pattison and Bradley, ethics and religion are very intimately related. According to Bradley, “It is a moral duty not to be moral and this is the duty to be religious. But to be moral, is not a duty just as eating, drinking, sleeping etc, are not.

Ethics and sociology have a close relation. Ethics is the science which discusses the good or bad of human conduct and conduct is not possible without society which is studied by sociology.