Ethical Frameworks: Kant's Duty & Aristotle's Happiness

Kant's Formal Ethics: Duty as the Moral Standard

Formal ethics is an ethics without specific content. It does not define actions as good or bad based on the outcomes achieved, but rather according to the manner in which they are performed. This approach emphasizes universal, objective, necessary, and categorical rules. It is an autonomous morality.

Formalism: Good as a Duty

Immanuel Kant's formal ethics tells us not what we must try to achieve, but how we must act if our action is to be morally good. According to Kant, this way is to follow the only possible moral standard: duty.

Kant distinguishes three types of actions:

• Actions contrary to duty
• Actions in conformity with duty (but not from duty)
• Actions from duty

Actions from duty are the foundation of moral worth. The moral norm, grounded in duty, is reason itself. This ensures that the rule has universal validity, is autonomous, and independent of external interpretation.

The Categorical Imperative

Another key element of the moral law is the will. Reason dictates the moral norm, while the will prevails, enabling the performance of that norm. When reason dictates and the will prevails, Kant calls this the categorical imperative. This moral law is formulated as an order or mandate.

The categorical imperative is a formal principle. It dictates that we must act in a certain way, and it is autonomous because it stems from the individual's will to act in that way. It is also objective, valid for all subjects.

Aristotle's Eudaimonism: Good and Happiness

Eudaimonism, as proposed by Aristotle, is a teleological (or finalist) ethic. It maintains that every action aims at the attainment of some good. Aristotle considers the supreme good, the ultimate aim of any action, to be happiness (eudaimonia).

Achieving Happiness Through Virtue

Happiness, for Aristotle, is the most perfect activity that is proper to human beings. It is not something that just is, but something one must strive for and achieve through virtuous activity. Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtues:

• Ethical virtues: Developed through habit (e.g., courage, temperance).
• Intellectual virtues: Developed through teaching and experience (e.g., wisdom, understanding).

The Golden Mean

A virtuous person must always choose the mean when acting. Aristotle emphasized that this mean cannot be established in the abstract; each individual must determine it in each particular case according to their circumstances. Virtue is the rational capacity to know how to choose the right reason, following what one deems the golden mean between two extremes.