STOICS' MORAL PHILOSOPHY

STOICS' MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Stoicism is a philosophical school of thought that is dated back to the ancient trajectory of philosophy. Zeno of Citium is said to be the founder. It is a eudaimonic philosophy, hence it was  influenced by Platonists, Aristotelians and Epicureans. The Stoic's avers that the practice of virtue is both essential and enough to achieve happiness.

The stoics laid the foundation of their moral philosophy on their famous motto "follow nature" or "live according to nature". By that, the stoics believe in the rational nature of the universe and the and the rational nature of human beings. Having ascertained these, the stoics posited the morally right action are those actions done with virtue in accordance to nature i.e. reason while morally bad actions are those actions done without reason and with vice. The stoics posited vice to be the foundation of false value judgments in which we lose rational control by overvaluing things which in fact indifferent. Virtue  on the other hand is  a set of sciences governing moral choice, it is the one thing of intrinsic worth and therefore genuinely good.

The Stoics claimed of 'oikeisis' which means 'natural appropriation' firstly towards ourselves and then to others. With this notion, the stoics could seen as egoists firstly and then deontologists secondly. Hence the stoics' principle for moral judgment is seen to rely on an action being acted with virtue or vice and in accordance to human rational nature. These actions are either on the advancement of personal interest or on the with the identification of other people's interest.

KANT'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Immanuel Kant is one of the proponent of deontology theory which stresses on ones duty. Kant reaches this position on the basis that the only good thing without qualification is 'good will' which leads to the observation of moral law. Kant further claims that the moral laws are kind of imperatives and duties to human beings

Moreover, Kant further postulated the motivation of duty as constituted in the observance of the moral duty. For Kant, duties are rules combined with some kind of felt constraint or incentive on our choices, whether from external  coercion by others or from our own powers of reason.  Thus, if we do something because it is our “civic” duty, or our duty “as a boy scout” or “a good American,” our motivation is respect for the code that makes it our duty. Thinking we are duty bound is simply respecting, as such, certain laws pertaining to us. To act out of respect for the moral law, in Kant’s view, is to be moved to act by a recognition that the moral law is a supremely authoritative standard that binds us and to experience a kind of feeling, which is akin to awe and fear, when we acknowledge the moral law as the source of moral requirements. Human persons inevitably have respect for the moral law even though we are not always moved by it and even though we do not always comply with the moral standards that we nonetheless recognize as authoritative.

Kant’s account of the content of moral requirements and the nature of moral reasoning is based on his analysis of the unique force moral considerations have as reasons to act. The force of moral requirements as reasons is that we cannot ignore them no matter how circumstances might conspire against any other consideration. Basic moral requirements retain their reason-giving force under any circumstance, they have universal validity. So, whatever else may be said of basic moral requirements, their content is universal. Only a universal law could be the content of a requirement that has the reason-giving force of morality.