Mill and Kant symposium

During the symposium, there was one topic that really spoke out to me at the time. The scenario in which there is a button in two classrooms in which they cannot communicate with one another, and if one of them presses the button, the other group dies. However, if no one presses the button, everyone lives. If someone believed in Mill's point of view, no one will press the button, because his belief that the morally right thing to do would be to let everyone live. On Kant's side, he believed in the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, so in order to save lives, they might feel more inclined to press the button. To me, the most obvious decision would be to let no one press the button. I felt like the situation was much easier to settle than some others, because I felt like the majority of the people would be rational enough to not press the button. Even if there was someone who wanted to press the button for some odd reason, I feel like the majority of the rational people would be able to hold that one individual back from making such a heinous decision.


Another topic that really stuck out during the symposium is arguing whether or not consequences determine the moral will of an individual. It was an interesting idea to make, because a lot of people have good " intentions ", but the result or idea may backfire in that particular instant, so one would have to determine whether or not they are morally right. That is where Mill and Kant differentiate due to the fact Kant believes in the consequences of actions so in his view he would've been morally long. That is what I learned this week.