Ethics

Deontology

Required Reading: Kantianism

Required Reading: Introduction to Deontology

 

Required Reading: The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant

 

Watch this video introducing Kantian ethic

 

Writing assignment:
In 500 words or more (no less), create a maxim and evaluate it via the three formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Your maxim should only involve moral questions [i.e. “Stealing is always wrong”, but not “Doing jumping jacks is always wrong”]. The moral question should be general enough to apply to first principles and should involve no circumstantial qualifiers [i.e. “Stealing is always wrong”, not “If I am not hungry or chasing a bad guy or when no one is looking, stealing is always wrong”]. You may use examples, but you will still need to include a full scholarly definition of each, with commentary. You may use Wikipedia as a starting point, but be aware that Wikipedia is not a scholarly source and therefore can never be quoted in your paper. You will need to include in-text citations in your essay (last name, date, pg#) along with an APA formatted References page. You can find tools and examples of APA citation formats at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.