Immanuel Kant and reason
Would you help an old lady across the street? Would you help her out of the goodness of your heart? Would you help her for $5 tip? Would you help her because a plethora of beautiful women are watching sans-boyfriends? Immanuel Kant, unlike previous philosophers before him, defined an action as being good if it was done unconditionally. However, many do things that they perceive as "good" for their own gain, whether personally, religiously, or in society. In the example above, the only truly good action is to help the old lady without expectation of a trip or recognition from beautiful women (if money and the adoration of beautiful women come anyway, then who could complain!?). Kant's view that the only good actions are unconditionally good is a very sound argument because if one does good knowing they will benefit from it, then a person is truly not doing good. Actions are done for three reasons according to Kant, out of duty, "because you want to for its own sake" or personal enjoyment of doing the action, or because you are "impelled to through another inclination" (Korsgaard xiii). Actions that are unconditionally good are done out of duty since personal enjoyment of doing an action and being impelled to would naturally bias
Because of this, Kant felt that people should act as if their actions were to become universal laws of nature. If they followed Kant's principle of acting in such ways that their actions were to become universal laws of nature, then the world would undoubtedly become a Utopia. "Duty is the necessity of an action" (Kant 13) and undoubtedly affects all the actions that a person takes. moral law must be entirely unvarying" (MacIntyre 195). These universal moral laws comes from the notion presented in Groundworks "that we have moral obligations" (Korsgaard, xi). This is a major problem with current teaching of Christianity. God, however, being the supreme rational being, has never faulted in acting out of what is unconditionally good. Terrorist attacks would not happen because no one wants their own lands to be harmed. Even in society if one acts "good" because it is in accordance with the law, then he or she is still not truly acting good. It is safe to say, however, that even if society's laws are not one's own, a person still has to follow society's law so they will not infringe on other's ability to live and prosper. By putting the power in the individual it makes him or her completely responsible for the effects of morality in society. One should do right in society not because they will be rewards for doing so, or punished for not doing so, but because what society has proclaimed as being good is in accordance with his or her own morals. It is these people that Kant's message if most effective to.
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