Kant vs. Mill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Kant vs. Mill - Essay Example In other words, he says that one must act in a manner that one would expect others to act towards oneself. This Kantian ethical theory is popular because it is widely respected and consequently upheld by others. Mills’ ‘greatest happiness principle’ widely known as utilitarianism is fundamentally focused on the consequences of actions taken. He believed in the philosophy that actions, which result in maximum happiness for maximum number of people, are invariable good and therefore, the end justifies the means if it generates happiness for people. Popularised as act utilitarian theory, the actions, that are designed to benefit or have beneficial cascading effects on others, are morally and ethically right. Bentham propagates Mills’ theory and says ‘when choosing a course of action, one should always pick the one that will maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness for the greatest number of people’ (Bentham from Rosenstand p.176). I agree with Kant that trash should not be thrown out of the car window on the freeway primarily because Kant is quite vociferous on the issue that respect for others must become part of our actions and people must act appropriately. Throwing trash not only promotes the bad habit of scattering trash all over the place, even if it is a freeway, but it also violates the law of the state that encourages cleanliness, good habits amongst the citizens and ensures safety of other road users. Despite being a freeway, the people must ensure that their acts do not hurt the other people and throwing trash out of the window could inadvertently hurt people who could be passing by. Mills response to the issue is ridiculous because although cleaning lanes does provide employment to a segment of the people but at the same time, deliberately throwing trash would hurt the sensibilities of a lot more people! It must be understood that people are living within a defined parameters of a social framework. Hence, well being of