Immanuel Kant Morality

Over time philosophers have written countless books, theories, and essays as a way of changing the way people think and view life. Immanuel Kant, a philosopher around the seventeen and early eighteenth century, was no different in his thoughts and writings about morality, freedom, reason, and standpoints. Morality being one of the most contradictory concepts out there, it only suits that there are numerous theories. Unlike Utilitarianism, which considers an actions morality to be dependent upon the utility resulting from the action. Kant’s moral theory holds that an actions ethicality is derived not from consequence, but the action itself. He distinguishes between actions that are morally virtuous, and actions that are not virtuous, by applying the action universally to mankind. If the action is necessary for a functioning society, then a person is morally obligated to fulfill the action unconditionally, this is what Kant refers to as the categorical imperative. To elaborate, under Kant’s moral theory, if one desires to be virtuous, they must always tell the truth. Though this may seem intuitive,being
Kant would hold that to kill another person is immoral unconditionally. For instance a standard society would be unable to function if they freely killed each other. Therefore, the categorical imperative classifies murder as an unethical or immoral action. An example of this: lets say that there is a quarantined man who is the carrier of an incredibly lethal pathogen that could potentially wipe out fifty-percent of the world’s population. The man happens to escape quarantine and is on his way to a major metropolitan area. Local police are unable to respond fast enough in order to stop the infected man. However, there is world-renowned sniper with a clear shot on the man. According to Kant, although killing the man would save millions of lives it still remains