School of Business & Economics

Report Title : Ethical Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics

Course Title : Business Ethics
Course Code : PHI401 (Section#07)

Prepared for:
Professor Dr. Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan (Krl)

Department of History & Philosophy

North South University

Prepared by:
Saidul Alam Rahat

Date of Submission: 24th December, 2019

Letter of Transmittal
December 24, 2019
 Ethical Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics

Professor Dr. Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan

Department of History & Philosophy

School of Business & Economics

North South University

Subject: Submission of Individual Report.

Dear Sir,

The assignment was meant for me to develop our Business ethics related knowledge. As per
the requirement of the subject “Business Ethics”, I’m submitting the report on ‘Ethical
Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics’, in accordance with your instructions. In this
assignment I have tried to implement my learning from this course. The information I have
gathered for this project, I believe is appropriate to complete this assignment. I would like to
thank you for offering me with the opportunity to work on this project.

If you have any further enquiry concerning any additional information, I would be very
pleased to clarify that. Thank you.

Sincerely

Saidul Alam Rahat

Executive Summary

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 Ethical Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics

This report is prepared as a part of PHI401 ‘Business Ethics’ course with the sole purpose of
discussing Kantian Ethics. First of all, I talked about history of Kantian Ethics and three main
imperatives Kantian ethics which includes universalized, respect, and formula of autonomy.
In the next part, I comparison between Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism with examples that
Kantian ethics tell that individual intention and motive is main thing where Utilitarianism
tells that ultimate outcome is everything. Then I talked about Kantian ethics in workplace
with the example of a family business. There I discussed how hiring a well person based on
their family connection is unethical in terms of Kantian ethics. In the next part I discussed
broadly about importance of Kantian ethics where I talk about the flaws of Utilitarianism
theory in light of Kantian ethics. Then I talked about the criticism of Kantian Ethics. There I
included German savant G. W. F. Hegel & Arthur Schopenhauer reaction to Kantian ethics.
Kantian ethics often gets criticized because of not considering the ultimate outcome of a task.
However, we know that future is uncertain, only motive and intention will define whether an
individual or organization is ethical or not.

Table of Content

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 Ethical Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics

Contents

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................5

KANTIAN THEORY: OVERVIEW..................................................................................6

UNIVERSAL LAW........................................................................................................6

RESPECT PRINCIPLE.................................................................................................7

FORMULA OF AUTONOMY.......................................................................................8

COMPARISON BETWEEN KANTIAN ETHICS & UTILITARIANISM........................8

KANTIAN ETHICS IN WORKPLACE.............................................................................9

IMPORTANCE OF KANTIAN ETHICS..........................................................................9

CRITICISM.....................................................................................................................10

CONCLUSION................................................................................................................11

BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................12

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 Ethical Decision Making According to Kantian Ethics

INTRODUCTION
Kantian morals allude to a deontological moral hypothesis credited to the German rationalist
Immanuel Kant. The hypothesis, created because of Enlightenment logic, depends on the
view that the main naturally beneficial thing is a positive attitude; an activity must be great if
it’s saying—the standard behind it—is obligation to the ethical law. Fundamental to Kant's
development of the ethical law is the downright goal, which follows up on all individuals,
paying little respect to their inclinations or wants. Kant planned the unmitigated basic in
different manners. His guideline of universalizability requires that, for an activity to be
passable, it must be conceivable to apply it to all individuals without a logical inconsistency
happening. Kant's detailing of mankind, the second area of the Categorical Imperative,
expresses that as an end in itself people are required never to treat others just as an
unfortunate chore, however consistently, moreover, as finishes in themselves. The detailing
of self-sufficiency infers that reasonable specialists are bound to the ethical law by their own
will, while Kant's idea of the Kingdom of Ends necessitates that individuals go about as
though the standards of their activities set up a law for a speculative realm. Kant additionally
recognized great and defective obligations. An ideal obligation, for example, the obligation
not to lay, consistently remains constant; a blemished obligation, for example, the obligation
to provide for philanthropy, can be made adaptable and applied specifically time and spot.
American logician Louis Pojman has referred to Pietism, political thinker Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, the cutting edge banter among realism and induction, and the impact of normal law
as effects on the advancement of Kant's morals. Different savants have contended that Kant's
folks and his educator, Martin Knutzen, impacted his morals. Those impacted by Kantian
morals incorporate savant Jürgen Habermas, political thinker John Rawls, and psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan. German savant G. W. F. Hegel condemned Kant for not giving explicit
enough detail in his ethical hypothesis to influence basic leadership and for denying human
instinct. German savant Arthur Schopenhauer contended that morals should endeavor to
depict how individuals carry on and reprimanded Kant for being prescriptive. Marcia Baron
has protected the hypothesis by contending that obligation doesn't lessen different
inspirations. The Catholic Church has reprimanded Kant's morals as opposing and views
Christian morals as progressively perfect with goodness morals. The case that all people are
expected nobility and regard as self-sufficient specialists implies that restorative experts
ought to be glad for their medications to be performed on anybody and that patients should
never be dealt with only as helpful for society. Kant's way to deal with sexual morals rose up

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out of his view that people ought to never be utilized just as a necessary chore, driving him to
see sexual action as corrupting and to denounce certain particular sexual practices - for
instance, extramarital sex. Women's activist rationalists have utilized Kantian morals to
denounce practices, for example, prostitution and erotic entertainment since they treat ladies
as means. Kant likewise accepted that, since creatures don't have discernment, we can't have
obligations to them with the exception of backhanded obligations not to create improper
attitudes through mercilessness towards them. Kant utilized the case of lying as a utilization
of his morals: on the grounds that there is an ideal obligation to come clean, we should never
lie, regardless of whether it appears that lying would achieve preferable outcomes over
coming clean.

KANTIAN THEORY: OVERVIEW

The primary formulation of Kant's ethics is the categorical imperative, from which he derived
four further formulations. Kant made a distinction between categorical and hypothetical
imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is one we must obey if we want to satisfy our desires:
'go to the doctor' is a hypothetical imperative because we are only obliged to obey it if we
want to get well. A categorical imperative binds us regardless of our desires: everyone has a
duty to not lie, regardless of circumstances and even if it is in our interest to do so. These
imperatives are morally binding because they are based on reason, rather than contingent
facts about an agent. Unlike hypothetical imperatives, which bind us insofar as we are part of
a group or society which we owe duties to, we cannot opt out of the categorical imperative
because we cannot opt out of being rational agents. We owe a duty to rationality by virtue of
being rational agents; therefore, rational moral principles apply to all rational agents at all
times.

UNIVERSAL LAW: Kant's first formulation of the Categorical Imperative is that of

Universalized. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that
it should become a universal law. — Immanuel Kant. When someone acts, it is according to a
rule, or maxim. For Kant, an act is only permissible if one is willing for the maxim that
allows the action to be a universal law by which everyone acts. Maxims fail this test if they
produce either a contradiction in conception or a contradiction in the will when universalized.
A contradiction in conception happens when, if a maxim were to be universalized, it ceases to
make sense because the maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a

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universal law. For example, if the maxim 'It is permissible to break promises' was
universalized, no one would trust any promises made, so the idea of a promise would become
meaningless; the maxim would be self-contradictory because, when universalized, promises
cease to be meaningful. The maxim is not moral because it is logically impossible to
universalize—we could not conceive of a world where this maxim was universalized. A
maxim can also be immoral if it creates a contradiction in the will when universalized. This
does not mean a logical contradiction, but that universalizing the maxim leads to a state of
affairs that no rational being would desire. For example, Julia Driver argues that the maxim 'I
will not give to charity' produces a contradiction in the will when universalized because a
world where no one gives to charity would be undesirable for the person who acts by that
maxim. Kant believed that morality is the objective law of reason: just as objective physical
laws necessitate physical actions, objective rational laws necessitate rational actions. He thus
believed that a perfectly rational being must also be perfectly moral because a perfectly
rational being subjectively finds it necessary to do what is rationally necessary. Because
humans are not perfectly rational (they partly act by instinct), Kant believed that humans
must conform their subjective will to objective rational laws, which he called conformity
obligation. Kant argued that the objective law of reason is a priori, existing externally from
rational being. Just as physical laws exist prior to physical beings; rational laws (morality)
exist prior to rational beings. Therefore, according to Kant, rational morality is universal and
cannot change depending on circumstance. Kant himself criticized the Golden Rule as neither
purely formal nor necessarily universally binding.

RESPECT PRINCIPLE: Kant's second formulation of the Categorical Imperative is

to treat humanity as an end in itself: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never
simply as a means. — Immanuel Kant. Kant argued that rational beings can never be treated
merely as means to ends; they must always also be treated as ends themselves, requiring that
their own reasoned motives must be equally respected. This derives from Kant's claim that
reason motivates morality: it demands that we respect reason as a motive in all beings,
including other people. A rational being cannot rationally consent to be used merely as a
means to an end, so they must always be treated as an end. Kant justified this by arguing that
moral obligation is a rational necessity: that which is rationally willed is morally right.
Because all rational agents rationally will themselves to be an end and never merely a means,
it is morally obligatory that they are treated as such. This does not mean that we can never

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treat a human as a means to an end, but that when we do, we also treat him as an end in
himself.

FORMULA OF AUTONOMY: Kant's Formula of Autonomy expresses the idea

that an agent is obliged to follow the Categorical Imperative because of their rational will,
rather than any outside influence. Kant believed that any moral law motivated by the desire to
fulfill some other interest would deny the Categorical Imperative, leading him to argue that
the moral law must only arise from a rational will. This principle requires people to recognize
the right of others to act autonomously and means that, as moral laws must be
universalisable, what is required of one person is required of all.

COMPARISON BETWEEN KANTIAN ETHICS &

UTILITARIANISM
There is hardly any similarity between utilitarianism and Kantianism. Utilitarianism states
that what makes an action right is that it produces the greatest amount of happiness. Hence,
any action that does not produce the greatest happiness is wrong according to utilitarianism.
For example, if you had to kill a mass killer in order to save a bunch of people and it makes
them happy, utilitarianism states that the act is right. However, Kant doesn’t think the
rightness of the act depends on consequences. Rather, the rightness of an act depends on
acting on a maxim that one can consistently will as a universal law. This sounds like a
mouthful, but basically Kant’s point is that if you want to do something and you aren’t sure if
it is OK to do it, you would have to ask what the world would look like if everyone does it. If
everyone does the act, but as the result the act no longer makes any sense or serves any
purpose in that world, then the act is not morally permissible.

For example, if you wanted to steal, but suppose you weren’t sure you would have to ask
“what if I made a moral law that everyone could steal?” In a world where stealing is OK,
there wouldn’t be such a thing as ownership because everyone takes everything from
everyone. But stealing is literally impossible if nobody owns anything. So There ant be a
world where stealing is ok. If there was, then there wouldn’t be any ownership. This example
exemplifies Kant’s categorical imperative where you are only allowed to act according to a
principle that you can will as a universal law. You can’t act according to a principle in which
stealing and promise breaking is OK because you can’t will those principles as a universal

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law. Willing them as a universal law would lead to a nonsensical world where stealing and
promise breaking don’t make any sense.

A utilitarian would allow lying and stealing as long as they produce the best consequence for
everyone. For example, consider Robin Hood. He steals from the rich in order to give their
goods to the poor. Robin Hood’s action made a lot of people happy at the expense of a small
amount of wealthy people. A utilitarian might say that Robin Hood’s action is right, but Kant
would say that stealing is wrong because if you willed it as a universal law it would be self-
defeating.

KANTIAN ETHICS IN WORKPLACE

Kantian ethics is deontological, meaning that the actions rather than the consequences matter
in ethical decision making. For Kant, the essence of morality is the goodwill, and, reason is at
the centre of morality. This means that good will must overcome emotion. Moreover, duty is
a crucial element to the doctrine as it provides the moral motivation. The core tenant of
Kantian ethics is the Categorical Imperative which has three formulations:

1) Universal law, 2) respect principle, and 3) Formula of Autonomy. Ultimately, under

Kantian ethics one must think of how one’s fully rational self would act.

Applied to business, Kantian ethics is too rigid as the principle of duty stifles progress. For
example, in a family run business, they may be partial to choose employees based on who
they know and so are motivated by personal interest. However, such sort of partiality cannot
be accepted under a Kantian ethical framework. Yet, for the family run business, this system
may deliver reliable and beneficial results, vastly improving the quality of the services they
provide. This shows that a direct application of Kantian ethics principle is too optimistic and
can be impractical sometimes. Other ethical framework such as utilitarianism allow for more
contextualization.

IMPORTANCE OF KANTIAN ETHICS

Kant's theory of moral worth involves identifying the individual as the author of moral law.
One acts morally, according to Kant, when one chooses to act in a way in which that person
would expect all people to act. When one acts in such a fashion, then, one is in essence
legislating moral law - and that is the source of all moral value. Its significance is in stripping

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away from morality all extraneous values. In particular, I believe Kant was - at the time he
was writing - addressing the Utilitarian. Utilitarian’s argue that moral value is to be found in
the product of one's act - mainly in the amount of happiness/pleasure/satisfaction one is able
to produce. From Kant's perspective, this has some major flaws. First, there is no way the
moral value of an agent can be determined by the non-moral consequences of an act; nor can
moral value derive from sensations. A bowl of ice cream tastes wonderful, and one can
derive great pleasure from eating it, but it is entirely inappropriate to say that ice cream is
therefore morally good, or that the person who eats it is morally good; one cannot say that
eating ice cream is the moral thing to do. Besides, and secondly, one can only control one's
own actions. Beyond one's actions one has no meaningful control, as one cannot control the
external world or the circumstances that arise therein. Thus, the consequences of one's act
may be significantly different than what one had intended to bring about. I may make an
extreme effort to save the life of someone who is drowning in a lake, but fail nevertheless to
save the person. Since something bad has happened does my act of attempting to save the
person become a bad thing or does it have no value at all. Kant would say that the agent
cannot control anything other than his own actions - I can only jump in the water and swim
out to the drowning person and bring them back to shore. I cannot control how long the
person has been in the water, how much water the person has aspirated, how poorly the
person can swim, how much the person struggles when I reach them and try to bring them
ashore; all I can be responsible for is my effort to save the person. If that is the case, says
Kant, the reasonable thing to do is ask why the agent acted as they did. Here Kant gets very
strict, because there is only one motive that qualifies as moral: the intent to do what one
would expect anyone to do. You can't have done it for fame and glory, for pecuniary reward,
or whatever, as those things is not moral. Only the intention to fulfill one's moral obligation
as one sees it qualifies the act and the agent as moral.

CRITICISM
Firstly, German savant G. W. F. Hegel introduced two principle reactions of Kantian morals.
He previously said that Kantian morals gives no particular data about what individuals ought
to do in light of the fact that Kant's ethical law is exclusively a rule of non-contradiction. He
said that Kant's morals do not have any substance thus can't establish an incomparable
guideline of profound quality. To show this point, Hegel and his devotees have displayed
various cases in which the Formula of Universal Law either gives no important answer or

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offers a clearly off-base response. Hegel utilized Kant's case of being trusted with another
man's cash to contend that Kant's Formula of Universal Law can't decide if a social
arrangement of property is an ethically beneficial thing, on the grounds that either answer can
involve logical inconsistencies. He additionally utilized the case of helping poor people: if
everybody helped poor people, there would be no poor left to help, so value would be
incomprehensible whenever universalized, making it improper as per Kant's model. Hegel's
subsequent analysis was that Kant's morals powers people into an inside clash among reason
and want. For Hegel, it is unnatural for people to smother their craving and subordinate it to
reason. This implies, by not tending to the pressure between personal circumstance and
profound quality, Kant's morals can't give people any motivation to be good.

Lastly, German scholar Arthur Schopenhauer scrutinized Kant's conviction that morals
should concern what should be done, demanding that the extent of morals ought to be to
endeavor to clarify and translate what really occurs. While Kant displayed a glorified form of
what should be done ideally, Schopenhauer contended that morals ought to rather be
reasonable and land at ends that could work in reality, equipped for being exhibited as an
answer for the world's problems. Schopenhauer drew a parallel with style, contending that in
the two cases prescriptive principles are not the most significant piece of the control. Since he
accepted that prudence can't be instructed—an individual is either prudent or isn't—he
thrown the best possible spot of profound quality as limiting and controlling individuals'
conduct, instead of showing unattainable all inclusive laws.

CONCLUSION
Kantian Ethics is the universalized moral. Back then, people thought moral will vary person
to person. But Kant’s said that moral and ethics need to be universalized like the law. So he
came up with the Kantian ethics to prove that. This theory almost covers every aspect. Three
imperative of Kantian ethics covers the individual right. Kantian theory can ensure best
ethical decision in a business organization. After all, good ethics is always a good business.
Consumers are more attached to the fair company. Kantian Ethics can ensure long term
relationship with consumers and suppliers. Kantian ethics will help to make any decision
consumer, product, supplier, government, international client etc.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Johnson, R., & Cureton, A. (2016, July 7). Kant's Moral Philosophy. Retrieved from
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/.

Lam, T. (n.d.). Introduction to Philosophy. Retrieved from

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjacinto-
philosophy/chapter/kantian-ethics-criticisms/.

Kantian ethics. (2019, December 22). Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantian_ethics.

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