Justice!!! So sounded word that always arises in many controversial opinions and viewpoints. People cannot come to an agreement on the point, what can be recognized as a justice. The issues of justice and identifying who was right, but who was wrong always attracted me. How often was I involved in various discussions after watching movies or participating in the real situations happened. In this assignment, I would like to reflect on the 28-minute video episode where Michael Sandel – the lecturer from Harward University explains to the students Emmanuel Kant’s theory of the metaphysics of morality.
My first impression after I started watching the video was rather controversial. It seemed that the students were not engaged at all. However, in the first 2-3 minutes after the beginning of the lecture the attendees forgot about their mobile phones and other current affairs starting watching attentively how the lecturer was moving from one corner of the stage to another talking about the theory of justice introduced by one of the most famous German philosophers Immanuel Kant.
According to Kant, the only one thing every person cares about is his well-being and happiness. Even if the person obeys the laws for his own sake, but not for the law’s sake, it means that such a person cannot be recognized as the one who possesses a high level of morality. Kant claimed that if the particular person in the position of the shopkeeper, for instance, chose not to cheat customers, but acted honestly because in the opposite case his business reputation would suffer it could not be recognized as the moral action. On the other hand, in case, the worker such as a judge, for example, made a decision against his fellow due to his duty – such an action might be considered as the moral thing because the motive of morality was the motive of duty.
I was really fascinated by such an interpretation of so popular and so controversial phenomenon. In my opinion, all mentioned above stated for one logical fallacy in Kant’s conception – what was done under the burden of duty was called morality, culture or ethics. I have always thought that if people acted only for the morality’s sake, but not for their own sake – it would lead to the misbalance inside the personality. Furthermore, the human’s inner voice would nag him / her, so the morality would not bring the person to the happiness.
I noticed that the audience also felt trapped by such an explanation. Why do we live? Is the main aim to obey the laws and hold the duties? The students began to queue up to ask the lecture the questions after he had finished. The lecturer looked very satisfied with the caused effect of his lesson. His eyes sparkled while he was answering the questions. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I could call the professor a happy person – he did what he should do, but at the same time, he loved what he did. He justified the things he was convinced himself.
References
[Harward University]. (2009). Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 06: "MIND YOUR MOTIVE" Retrieved June 11, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rv-4aUbZxQ
