Milestone Activity 3 (Writing Activity)
Instructions
As Immanuel Kant explains in our reading for this unit, it is an individual’s duty to act in such a way that we would want everyone and anyone to act in a similar manner in similar circumstances. In other words, to be truly ethical, we must act in a way that we would wish all other *rational* people to follow as if it were a universal law for everyone for all time.
Phillipa Foot views things a bit differently: “If he is a moral man then he cares about such things, but not “because he ought”…they are relying on an illusion, as if trying to give the moral “ought” a magic force” (315).
In other words, Foot doesn’t believe that morality can ever function as a pure “categorical imperative” the way Kant envisioned which, in essence, becomes a “duty” to perform. So who is right– and why? Keep in mind that if you feel Foot is right, that a feeling that we “ought” to do something in a specific place and time because something may happen to us otherwise (in other words, that there may be negative consequences to us if we don’t do what we are told is “right”), then where does morality come from? How do we “enforce” it? Why would people bother to be moral? Try applying your answer to a contemporary situation, which could be something you have actually experienced or merely a hypothetical situation. (The debates around vaccination and social distancing, and the different ways different nations and different states within our own nation addressed such issues, is one example.)
Please clearly cite your source using MLA or APA formatting style with an in-text citation and a bibliographical citation at the end of your submission.