Question

What does Immanuel Kant mean by a "duty", what is the source of these duties, and how does one know what his or her duty is?

Answer 1

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and moral thinker who described that how one should live and what were the moral duties of people towards the mighty act of building a healthy soceity.

According to Kant, the moral duty of one could be described under three heads:

1. The correctness of doing: One should know that what is correct and what is incorrect while doing a task. There is way by which one could bypass the actual correct way of doing a task for the good of soceity.

2. The willingness of doing correct: It is far more important to be willing to do what is correct rather than just following the rule to do it correctly. This willingness to perform a task correct imbeds the idea of morality in individuals.

3. The stadiness to do an act correct: Inspite of having knowledge to do an act correctly and willingness to perform it, one should be steady and firm on the thoughts which decipher the correctness of an act. Since many social elements are always present in the society which prevent one from performing her/his duties, the firmness of the person determines the depth of morality of that person.

The philosophical literature of Kant has been well documented in various books available these days.