Verified Document

Kant Deontological Ethics -- Also Term Paper

Ross thought that all people should be benevolent and so if lying affects one's benevolence, one needs to decide if lying is better for the sake of benevolence. Ross' non-absolutist take to ethics is preferred because is considers what is morally right in certain situations. In the instance of a Poker game, it is a game that relies upon lying or "bluffing" so it actually does pass Kant's universal law test. Kant would probably not take issue with the game of Poker because it is a game that needs the aspect of bluffing in order to work. But, if we want to use the example and examine it purely from a Kantian perspective on lying, then we must consider that people are acting from a means approach and not an end approach and all of the players have the same intention in mind -- to wind the game -- and thus they have to use lying as a means to get what they want (the pot of money).

W.D. Ross's prima facie duties are always more "moral" than Kant's absolutist duties. For example, the duty to help other people must always be considered, however we also, according to Ross, have the duty to always keep our promises. So if we have promised to take our friend to the airport but on the way to the airport we witness a very serious accident, we have the moral duty to stop and help others. We can weigh stopping against breaking...

We may decide to stop and help and call our friend and say she will have to take a cab. The friend will more than likely understand because of the fact that there are lives that are hanging in the air. However, if we just decide that we are too tired to drive to the airport to get our friend and so we call and lie, this would be wrong in Ross's opinion because we are, first of all, not acting in a benevolent manner as well not keeping a promise. Weighing the prima facie duties against one another makes more sense than saying that we can never lie or we can never steal. What if we had to steal a loaf of bread or our children would die from starvation? Ross would have us weigh the prima facie duties against one another in this case and though we have the duty to not harm others, we also have the duty to help others. If stealing the bread was from a wealthy storeowner, then we may believe that what we are doing is right because we are feeding our children. Kant would say that stealing is never right -- no matter what. Non-absolutism is a better system for acting morally.
References

Bennett, Jonathan. (2010). Groundwork for the metaphysic model. Immanuel Kant.

Ross, W.D. (1930). What makes right acts right? The right and the good. Oxford: Oxford

Sources used in this document:
References

Bennett, Jonathan. (2010). Groundwork for the metaphysic model. Immanuel Kant.

Ross, W.D. (1930). What makes right acts right? The right and the good. Oxford: Oxford
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Words: 1376 Length: 4 Document Type: Book Review

Presenting natives as a 'doomed' race is comforting: "Feeling good is a human need, but it imposes a burden that history cannot bear without becoming simple-minded. Casting Indian history as a tragedy because Native Americans could not or would not acculturate is feel-good history for whites. By downplaying Indian wars, textbooks help us forget that we wrested the continent from Native Americans" (Loewen 133). More liberal textbooks portray native persons

Lie Detection
Words: 985 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Lie Detection: Recent Research and Examination The study, "Early vs. Late Disclosure of Evidence: Effects on Verbal Cues to Deception, Confessions, and Lie Catchers' Accuracy" by Jordan and colleagues attempts to pinpoint the elements of coerced confessions among other aspects in subterfuge. The dilemma with this study is that all attempts to make it seem as organic and realistic as possible in order to capture genuine human responses were not well executed,

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Words: 1739 Length: 5 Document Type: Book Review

The resulting quandary becomes one, therefore, that textbooks are being written and history taught in this manner so as to show and instruct people how they should act and strive to become - a rather false vision. What this accomplishes is nothing more then to relay to the student what is deemed acceptable to everyone and what is not - a general consensus filled with errors and inadequacies. When

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Words: 2788 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

This is a classic example to support Loewen's thesis of biased textbooks, inaccurate textbooks, and textbooks that eschew controversy. In general, according to Loewen, textbooks avoid the problems of the recent past, must to his dismay. This will only lead to improper education of American students and thus the Vietnam War serves as a solid example of his contentions. I believe that most of Loewen's claims are substantiated, except that he does have some left wing

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Words: 1178 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Lies My Teacher Told Me stresses how students can repeat the same social studies class three times and still be ignorant of American history. Today, U.S. young adults leave most history courses with the false belief that the subject is only a bunch of facts and dates, completely boring, irrelevant to their lives and out of touch with the real world. Especially if a student is Latino, African-American, Asian or

Lie With Statistics Huff, Darrell. How to
Words: 949 Length: 3 Document Type: Book Report

Lie With Statistics Huff, Darrell. How to lie with statistics. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993. 'There is terror in numbers.' Darrell Huff was not a statistician. However, he wrote his 1954 classic How to lie with statistics to help his math-intimidated readership better "look a phony statistic in the eye and face it down; and no less important, how to recognize sound and usable data in [the] wilderness of

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now