A02

• CLASHING DUTIES

  STRENGTH - rules arent asserted to people through an external authority as though they are children, Kant's take engages the autonomy of the individual in a way required for a civilised society

  WEAKNESS - duties that clash suggest that some are not duties e.g. staying home with a sick relative or fighting in war for your country, both are duties that can be performed by everyone but both cannot be done meaning that one cannot be a universal maxim, which poses a flaw in his argument
• CLASHING DUTIES - EVALUATION

  STRENGTH - Kant claims that if duties clash then we havent used our reason properly: there are perfect duties where there is only one way of doing them + imperfect ones where there are multiple ways e.g. a perfect duty to tell the truth can only be done by avoiding lying, the soldier case can be completed by paying someone to look after your relative, or help the war effort by working in a factory at home whilst also looking after the relative. This is successful as you are able to fulfil both duties.
• CLASHING DUTIES - EVALUATION

  WEAKNESS - the axe example shows 2 perfect duties clashing, do not take life, and do not lie; if you do one duty, the other would be broken. Kant argued that doing nothing is better than breaking duty, Bonhoeffer argued that "doing nothing is just as morally bad as doing something"
• Shopenhauer said that Kantian ethics were "cold and dead"
• CONSQUENTIONALISM

  STRENGTH - B.Constant criticised Kant with the murder at the door senario arguing that we should lie as it fits most peoples moral intuition, therefore telling the truth cannot be duty - Kant argues that if we lie about where the victim was and they moved, we are responsible for their death - we cannot control consequences so cannot be responsible

  WEAKNESS - we can control some consequences e.g. lie or someone will deploy nukes that will kill billions. so we should take consequences into account to the degree that we have knowledge and can control them
• CONSEQUENTIONALISM - EVALUATED

  STRENGTHS - we can only control what we do, not what others do, so lying to prevent the Nazi from killing people is acting as though we are responsible for their action, which we are not; therefore we should not lie

  WEAKNESS - this still fails as we are responsible for what others do: Hegel argued that we exist in complex webs of social influence therefore responsible for each others actions
• EMOTIONS

  STRENGTHS - Kant argues that emotions are unreliable because they are transient, acting on emotion is morally wrong: if we help people because we feel good then it is immoral. Duty based actions are the only true good - Herman argues that emotions only lead to the right action by luck
• EMOTIONS


  WEAKNESS - Stocker and Williams argues that acting solely on duty is implausible and baffling e.g. going to visit a friend in hospital just because of duty. Kant made the mistake of a false dichotomy, actions by duty or self interest - virtue ethics provides the middle ground that is more naturally aligned with human relationships- Shopenhauer "cold and dead"
• STRENGTH - Kant's focus on human dignity was instrumental in the development of human rights - just doing the hypothetical imperative would mean humans would only be moral when it suited them
• PHILLIPA FOOT 


  WEAKNESS - the rules of etiquette like "not eating with your mouth open" can be a categorical imperative as everyone can do it, but it would not seem immoral or irrational to not do it, so why is it irrational to disobey Kant's Categorical imperative