Ideas of Kant Versus Ideas of Mill - Essay Example

Answer A Emmanual Kant, eminent philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers of modern times, has been quite vocal in discussing the moral and ethical values of man. He says that moral obligations are imperatives and his two Rules define the categorical imperatives: Rules of Universality; and Rules of Respect (Kant, 2004). The first one makes says that people at all times must act appropriately and the second rule promotes the value of respect and says that well being of all individuals is important and therefore, one should not use others for their own vested interests.

In other words, he says that one must act in a manner that one would expect others to act towards oneself. This Kantian ethical theory is popular because it is widely respected and consequently upheld by others. Mills’ ‘greatest happiness principle’ widely known as utilitarianism is fundamentally focused on the consequences of actions taken. He believed in the philosophy that actions, which result in maximum happiness for the maximum number of people, are invariable good, and therefore, the end justifies the means if it generates happiness for people.

Popularised as act utilitarian theory, the actions, that are designed to benefit or have beneficial cascading effects on others, are morally and ethically right. Bentham propagates Mills’ theory and says ‘when choosing a course of action, one should always pick the one that will maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness for the greatest number of people (Bentham from Rosenstand p.176). Answer B I agree with Kant that trash should not be thrown out of the car window on the freeway primarily because Kant is quite vociferous on the issue that respect for others must become part of our actions and people must act appropriately.

Throwing trash not only promotes the bad habit of scattering trash all over the place, even if it is a freeway, but it also violates the law of the state that encourages cleanliness, and good habits amongst the citizens and ensures the safety of other road users. Despite being a freeway, the people must ensure that their acts do not hurt other people, and throwing trash out of the window could inadvertently hurt people who could be passing by. Mills' response to the issue is ridiculous because although cleaning lanes does provide employment to a segment of the people at the same time, deliberately throwing trash would hurt the sensibilities of a lot more people!

It must be understood that people are living within the defined parameters of a social framework. Hence, well being of all individuals is important to factor. Though both, Kant and Mills have promoted the concept of actions based on actions that are universally accepted as good, their major disagreement is in the ‘means’ through which the ‘end’ is achieved. Kantian philosophy better suits the issue because it proclaims actions that corroborate with the wider welfare of the people and is not concentrated on the ‘few’ people who are involved in cleaning.