Essay: Ethical Worth of an Act

Sample Essay

Unlike Utilitarianism or eudaimonic consequentiality, Kant says that it is wrong to look for the ethical worth of an act in its results. The grounds for this is that predictable outcomes of all actions, such as humanizing one’s own situation, as in selfishness, or rising contentment of everybody expected to be caused by the act such as the case in utilitarianism, Kant mentions that there could have been other causes for such outcomes.

In such cases “there would have been no need of the will of a rational being” (Kant, 1964). Immanuel Kant tries to outline the basis of their premises by declining all moral theories that are linked to the results, and then throwing light on our moral inspirations and measures. Kant wants to gain good characters out of conditionally correct actions. He believes that all is dependent; all can have positive and negative value, depending on how it is utilized. So he is trying to find the highest law of morality in his entire analysis. Kant also states that an act is right or wrong supporting exclusively on the motive by which it was carried out. On the other hand, a Utilitarian, like John Mill, would reject Kant’s reasoning of originating good characters out of actions alone, and instead argue that if an action has bad consequences, then the action was morally wrong (Allison, 1998).

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