As the professor said about the blog being wide open, I think that Hobbes theory about morality is also wide open.  He says that anything that goes against the social contract is immoral and anything that doesn’t is moral.  I think that he leaves to much  to be thought of as moral.  Take a world like ours, there is no moral value to doing your chores and getting the little things done all day.  In society like Hobbes’ it would be considered moral to do your chores because it doesn’t go against the social contract theory.

According to Kant, it is immoral to neglect our natural talents because it cannot be willed into universal law.  Kant believes that no rational human being would be able to comply with this because our natural talents serve us for all different reasons.  He thinks that our rationality and the maxim, if you want to neglect your talents then be lazy, cannot be a part of the same human nature.  Kant uses our rationality to try and make this a convincing argument, but I think that it depends on the interpretation of rationality in order to believe his argument.  His interpretation of rationality is one that consists of the necessary willing that all of the talents be developed.  I think that he believes that rationality is the ability to reason and choose what is best for you.  People in reality though, don’t always know what is best for them self and therefore depend on others to help them.  I am not convinced by his argument because I think that if the maxim were a universal law there would still be people who aren’t lazy and those people would develop their talents to the fullest extent.  I don’t think that a place like this if far from what we live in today.

Kant’s categorical imperative strengthens our duty not to tell lies because the categorical imperative states that we should “act only such that you could will our maxim into universal law,” which means that we have the duty not to lie because we couldn’t will the act of lying into universal law.  In other words, if we were able to lie because it was a universal law, then all of the truth in the world would break down because you wouldn’t know if the person was lying or telling the truth.  Another problem is that no one would give to others because you wouldn’t believe the other person when asked to do something.  You wouldn’t believe other people because everyone in the world would have the reflex to lie when put in the position were they needed something from someone else.  For example, image yourself in a place were everyone in the world would lie when they needed something.  Now my lawn needs to be cut and because I don’t have any time I ask you to cut it and in return I will pay you fifty dollars. Your answer to this would be no way because you know that I would never pay you the money and I only asked because I have no time.  This example shows how lying is immoral and how we have the duty not to lie because if everyone were to follow the act of lying, then the promises and truth in the world would be no more.

The objectors say that Utilitarianism is asking too much because it is unreasonable to ask that people think and act out of the motivation of overall happiness. Mill’s response to this is that he is not asking people to think about overall happiness while making decisions, he is only telling them to do things to increase overall happiness. The example of the two people that donate to charity and that one is only doing it to get a tax cut is a good example for this because it shows that the one person is only doing it for the selfish reason of receiving in return a tax benefit and not to increase overall happiness. This proves the objectors wrong, and shows that people can have other reasons for doing things and still increase overall happiness in the end. Even though the person getting the tax cut is increasing overall happiness on a greater scale because he is also making himself happier, the other person is just as happy because he just donated to charity. I believe that is acting out of the knowledge of helping others and not himself.