Immanuel Kant Research Paper

Immanuel Kant Essay Business Ethics

Immanuel Kant constantly stressed that we have a sense of duty that follows a law like characteristic, and in turn we are all autonomy individuals. We as human beings are self- law giving, and constantly seek to harmonize our realm of ends. Our realm of ends allows us to follow a universal law which will lead us to bettering each other through rational actions. However, rationality is decided through our reason, and our reason is to create happiness in the end. Many businesses these days have autonomic power and some exercise these powers to reach a realm of ends, but some do not. Firms like those on Wall Street made irrational decisions through their autonomic powers, which lead our economic into
a spiraling recession. Although there are some organizations who fight for our realm of ends, and organizations like the Red Campaign show us this every day. Kant speaks of the realm of ends as a final end, that we as humans should try to produce. The realm of ends is a product of our actions in everyday life. The decisions made by individuals all contribute to the realm of ends Kant speaks of. Human beings act on universal maxims that meet everyone else’s standards. In response to this action, humans then respect one another as rational beings. The big thing with the realm of ends, is that it promotes a universal goal to achieve “good” and happiness. The goal is for everyone to model off of each other by acting rationally to achieve the goal of doing good. Kant says, “Yet enjoying uninterrupted prosperity can never give pleasure to a rational impartial observer. Thus the good will seems to constitute the indispensible condition even of worthiness to be happy.” This shows that we as humans will always strive to be happy, but it should be done through rationality. Our reason behind our actions should be to provoke improvements around us. The realm of ends, is like a domino effect, when one acts as a rational agent, then others will follow accordingly. If we all come together to practice these maxims as one group we can greatly improve our entire city or state as whole. Our autonomic powers are what give us the self-law giving ability to achieve the realm of ends.
We are thought of as rational beings; therefore we make our decisions based on reason. Reason is the root of all rationality, and what surrounds us is what influences our reason for what we do. We want to succeed in everything we do, including business, relationships, and life in general. The way we go about succeeding is making decisions based on the improvement of our well-being. In Kant’s second section he states that, “If reason infallibly determines the will, the actions which such a being recognizes as objectively necessary are also subjectively necessary.” Kant is telling us that our reason determines what we want to be, and as humans we want happiness. We recognize our actions as subjectively and objectively necessary, meaning that what we do is proven to be right, and also morally right. As a majority we base our actions on morals, and our self-law giving supports these morals (for the most part). That is why morality is so important, because if we are the ones to decide what is right and wrong, then technically our well-being is up to us. An example is the Nike sweat shops, there wasn’t a law monitoring their working conditions or pay. But Nike’s autonomic power was used for immoral actions in third world countries. Nike’s immoral actions caused the suffering and unhappiness for many people which is not the realm of ends our world aims
for. There are plenty of organizations in the world that are aiming to achieve a morally acceptable realm of ends. The Red Campaign is a good example of an organization that follows a universal maxim to help others. The Red Campaign is a campaign to raise money for charities all over the world. The goal is to allow the manufacturer to receive money while allowing them to give away a part to charity. The campaign is helping our realm of ends; it is a universal maxim to help out those in need, and the campaign is aiming to help this cause. There is hope that others will see this and will act rationally to help as well. The Red Campaign is acting with reason, and in turn there will be a drastic amount of happiness divided amongst those in poverty. There is a vision of mankind, and that is reaching our greatest realm of ends. Through rational actions and decisions made in everyday life we can work closer toward that end. As humans we possess a powerful autonomic power, and through this power we should strive to evolve universal maxims support the well-being of city as a whole. Morality is the seed to it all, and by being moral we will be able to make rational decisions that will not only bring happiness to ourselves, but to those that surround us as well. The domino effect of self-law giving is powerful, and as we create moral universal law, more people around us will follow our lead. Despite those businesses and people who do not exercise morality through their autonomic power, when they see people around them practicing it, they will then be more likely to change their ways. Reason is the root to rationality, and as long as our reason is moral and ethical then we will progress to the highest realm of ends.