Transcript On duty & Obligation

On duty & Obligation
Check your note-making
Aquinas points out
• “law” from the Latin “ligando” i.e., “to
bind” or “what must be done”
• Obliged to follow law:
▫ It comes from reason
▫ Is tied to the common good
• “a reasonable decision promulgated by a
competent authority for the common
good”
Law is reasonable when it is:
• Morally right
• Not arbitrary
• Not capricious
• Treats all alike (common good)
• Possible to keep
• Useful
Aquinas says laws are obeyed when
•Reasonable
•Preserve the common
good
Kant
• Feared: that morality wouldn’t last if it
were not based on reason alone
• “Dare to know!”
• “Be your own authority! Don’t let others
oblige you. Set your own duty or
obligation.”
• You must want to be autonomous i.e., “to
be a law unto oneself”
• You must want to be reasonable, you must
have a good will
Kant would NOT have supported:
Morality based on
“doing my own thing as
long as I don’t harm
anyone.”
Kant’s Morality
• People act out of duty & obligation they set for
themselves
• “Act in such a way that you always treat
humanity, whether your own person or in the
person of any other, never simply as a means,
always at the same time as an end.”
• The person is always to be treated as an end,
never as a means.
• “Do to others as you would have them do to
you.” (Lk. 6.31)