Moral Case

'Kant said we must act because of a perceived duty to do so. His model regards sets of rules, or principles (maxims) as the guide to human behaviour. These rules are also referred to as duties. Kant examined the act itself and developed these duties:

1. The duty to help others; refers to vulnerable people (causes of vulnerability include factors such as geographic location, physical (sick, disabled), age related (children, elderly), education and/or knowledge related.

2. The duty to tell the truth; refers to honesty, duty to avoid misleading or deceptive conduct, misrepresentations including gross exaggeration.

Conduct includes: actions, spoken, written words, tone of voice, gestures, photographic representations. Omission of relevant facts may be misleading. For example, what a person may say could be truthful but this may give a misleading impression because some relevant facts have been omitted.

3. The need to respect others; refers to the rights and opinions of others and the need to be fair and reasonable in relation to others

Universalize the act

If the act does not come under one of these maxims or you want further evidence of a breach of the above duties, ask these questions to determine whether the act is ethical:

(1) Formulate the maxim of the action (a statement that describes the principle of the action);

(2) Universalize the maxim; if everyone did this what effect would it have on commerce and/or commercial relationships? It may distort, destroy or offend them.

(3) In view of (2) determine whether the universalized maxim could be a universal law. In other words is it commercially and ethically practical?

If you ask these