The following essay aims to compare Ancient versus Modern theories of ethics, particularly those of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant. The central concepts of virtue, happiness, and the human good are relevant to modern ethics, but do not play the same...

The Practicality of Ethical Principles: Duty Before Fear

In this paper I will demonstrate how Immanuel Kant’s ethical principles presented in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM) provide a more appropriate choice to...

Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethical theory, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, can be viewed from many different perspectives. As it is based on duty operating as a final good, the theory of utilitarianism (a moral theory concerned...

The phenomenon of morality and its origination has been a topic of debate throughout history. Specifically, the world renowned philosophers, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, come to a very significant disagreement over the history of morality, the...

Beauty is a part of the human condition; we are attracted to what we find appealing and repelled by what we find unappealing. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholars captured this concept and put into words what it means to experience...

In Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is a text that begs to be understood from some of the philosopher’s more well-known concepts including the categorical imperative, which is introduced in the book as a way of evaluating...

The literary critics Alexander Pope and Immanuel Kant put critics to the test as they perform the task of critiquing critiques. In Pope’s Essay on Criticism, he provides the readers and critics with critique of critics in poetry form which in...

For years, the criteria for true knowledge has been a topic of debate among many philosophers. After all, the rise of skepticism created a sweeping wave of doubt that caused many to question previously held beliefs and even the validity of...

Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill represent two opposing schools of ethical thought. From Mill’s utilitarian perspective, the ethical value of anything can be determined based on its consequences, regardless of intent. For Kant, the consequences...

Though different in many ways, the writings of Kant, Nietzsche, and Sorel all acknowledge the significant role of violence in man's political affairs. Violence is a powerful tool. None of these men belie its importance, and they all accept that...

Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and Plato: All influential philosophers with differing opinions on what it means to be marked by morality. One situation in which the opinions of these philosophers could be used to evaluate the morality of a person is in...