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The Humanness of Hume and Kant's Moral Theories
Summary: Human moral theory can only be based on human action. It is important to understand why humans regard things as moral and Hume does an excellent job of explaining this based on observable human characteristics. A theory like Kant's lacks this quality. Since its basis is not observable it lacks the credibility for application. It is simply an idealistic approach to morals. Although potentially very pleasing, Kant's ideas loses their own validity by straying from humanity and into divinity.
The empirical nature of science has allowed for its success in solving great human problems and in understanding the world around us. Real life data and observations lead to such findings, which only then can be translated into theory. A theory without data is merely a hypothesis waiting to be shown true through observation. If you start with a theory and then try to prove it, you are taking a biased position and setting out to complete an impossible task. Nothing can be proven in science, only accepted until shown otherwise. Immanuel Kant in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals and David Hume in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals each take a very different approach in establishing their moral theory. Hume bases his theory on observations he makes of the society around him, while Kant instead establishes a theory based on his understanding of...
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This section contains 1,409 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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