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What is the morally right action for Kant and Mill

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I'm writing an essay on kant vs mill with the question asking on how they would respond the the quote "is it better to be good or to do good?"

I was thinking that Kant is to do and mill is to be.

I want to know if you could give me your opinion and help be build a thesis. I'm thinking once i get that i can back it up with evidence but i just need to get started with the right thesis.

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Solution Summary

This post addresses the issue of what the philosophers John Stuart and Immanuel Kant consider the morally right action: Does it come from doing the right thing or being a good cultivating character? In other words, for the two, what is more important: doing the right thing or the good thing?

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Doing good or being good. Kant and Mill in context.

Mill is more concerned with developing what he calls the 'internal culture of the individual'. It is important for him that one cultivates an 'ideal nobleness of will and conduct'.

Mill's focus is on character, that is, noble character. With him, it could be rightly said that what one is more important than what one does. In other words, it is one's character that informs one's action. A noble character would invariably do, not necessarily the right thing by the good thing. It is important to keep in mind that for him the standard of reference is happiness. So "happiness for all" constitutes for him 'the test of all rules of conduct'. The same goes for the cultivation of character. The morally wrong action in Mill's system ought to be punished by law, the overwhelming opinion of others (society), or by one's conscience. The normative ...

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