Not much posting due to "homework factor" as I'm swamped.
If you care to keep up I'm working on Kant's Groundwork of the metaphysics of Morals. Written in 1785, It comes out right before the Critique of Practical Reason (which was one of his three major works--Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgement being the other two. Kant's Groundwork in a nutshell is the intro to his Practical Reason.
Kant held to a deontological ethics--in fact, don't quote me--t he could be seen as its founder, if not then the major populizers/figure of this position. Deontology is a word built from the Greek words deon (duty) and logos (study of). Deontology argues that there are moral norms that are to be obyed by the agent. This is an ethic that throws out the idea that the ends justify the means.
To quote Kant's Groundwork, "Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it and so too does not lie in any principle of action that needs to borrow its motive from this expected effect."
Here are some links that might be of interest:
You can read (a different translation) the section we are reading for tomorrows class here
Also....
I still haven't set up the discussion group yet... it will likely be in two weeks as I want to give a weeks notice for those who want to spend some time reading. The first reading will be Plato's Euthyphro which was the first reading of the Ethics class i'm taking.
You can get the text here. But I highly recommend buying a copy as this is a classic of Western thought.
So get cracking if you live around Henry County so that we can try to make sense of it together....
Now I have to take off to Senoia for the 3rd Congressional District social. Hopefully I pull in some campaign contributions!
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