Ethics and moral reasoning; Kantianism and utilitarianism

Running head: KANTIANISM AND UTILITARIANISM REASONING 1
Ethics and moral reasoning; Kantianism and utilitarianism
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KANTIANISM AND UTILITARIANISM REASONING 2
Ethics and moral reasoning; Kantianism and utilitarianism
One of the texts from Emmanuel Kant is on false promise under the universal law
formulation. According to Kant, the universal law formula is that human beings are to act only
based on the maxima that they can will it to be considered a universal law in nature (Kant, 2008).
According to Kant’s argument false promise falls under the categorical imperatives in that the
commands are unconditional. This means that even one wishes to cheat to serve their interests,
they may not do that. The connection between morality and categorical imperative is what Kant
bases his argument and conclusion on the false promise text. The conclusion of the text is that if
making false promise became a universal law, the end that involved in the act may not be
attained. For instance, false promise is lying to gain something of interest and this means
accepting that all people can lie to also get what they want. However, if this would be the case, it
would be hard for people to believe one another and thus lies would not work and no one would
get things of interest (Kant, 2008). This means thwarting oneself from the goal in that it is
categorically imperative to lie since the only way to make false promise would be to lock oneself
out.
A utilitarian comes to a different conclusion about moral acts to Kant’s reasoning. The
reason is that as Kant beliefs that human beings need to look at the maxims of their actions while
the utilitarian people believe that human beings need to do actions that bring universal happiness
in life. There is variation in the way these two people come to make their conclusion (Thames,
2018). For instance, Kantianism involves a more time consuming process of analyzing an issue
to determine whether it can be considered a universal law. However a utilitarian would just
compare different actions and choose the one whose outcome if better to the others. Kant
believed that the life of human beings is valuable since humans can bear the rational life. This