Mill vs Kant, a Comparison

Theory for Universal Right and Wrong

Mill Vs. Kant

Compare and contrast two authors

For thousands of years philosophers have been trying to answer life’s most challenging and important questions. Questions that regard the big things like the meaning of life, where we come from, and what is (if there actually is) the universal ethical practices all human beings should follow. Such are not questions one can answer with science, numbers or to some extent logic. These questions require deep critical thinking that might sometimes lead to ideas that may seem irrational or impossible, nevertheless it is the only way we will ever get close to what really matters in life. Among these gigantic questions that only philosophers dare to tackle are issues that deal with absolute truths, something that is inherently true for all human beings. Indeed there have been many issues that involve something that is true for all, an example is Descartes’ search for apodictic knowledge and his conclusion that applies to all human beings, “Cogito Ergo Sum”: I think therefore I am. Unlike Descartes, Mill and Kant were concerned with anther issue that is probably not as immense as existence itself yet is still grand. Such issue is that of ethics. Is it possible for all human beings to be subject to the same standards for the determination of right and wrong, and if so, what would the foundation for such standards be? These are some of the questions both philosophers dwelled about, eventually leading them both to important conclusions that would become the pillars for ethical philosophy in the future. John Stuart Mill was the founder and promoter of Utilitarianism, a consequentialist ethical theory founded with the idea that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Immanuel Kant on the other hand based his ethical theory on the possession of reason (something he believed all human beings shared) and our ability to use reason in combination with personal will in order to...