Kant and Direct Duties

The Aim of this paper is to argue the case for a moral philosophical doctrine which, while Kantian in spirit and in much of its detail, permits an easier accommodation with certain widely held moral judgments than Kant's theory allows. The point at issue is Kant's doctrine of direct duties, namely, that any duty is ultimately to a person; indirectly a duty may be to a non-person, but if the duty in question has moral force it is by virtue of the fact that it is sanctioned or underpinned by a duty to a person. To take a conspicuous example: Kant does not believe animals to be persons, for he holds that a person is essentially rational and that animals lack rationality. Yet he accepts that we have certain duties with regard to animals, in particular a duty not to maltreat them. Kant's solution to this problem is to say that our real duties are to persons, and that it is by virtue of our duties to persons that we are morally required to set restrictions on our behaviour towards animals. It is for the sake of people that we must be kind to animals and never treat them cruelly

Doctrine · Duty · Epistemology · Law and economics · Political science · Rationality · Set (abstract data type) · Sociology · Theology · Virtue · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification

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