On Aug 16, 8:11 am, Scott H <zinites_p...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Kant's Categorical Imperative is, "Act only on the maxim that can
> become through your will a universal law of conduct." For example,
> lying is wrong, because if everyone lied, it would defeat the very
> purpose of trust.
>
Paraphrase;
You are permitted to act on a principle P only if you can will P to be
a universal law.
Here are two cool objections;
- Objection to First Formulation:
Which Maxims to Universalize?
We have seen from the preceding two examples that Kant's method of
deriving specific duties from the first formulation of the categorical
imperative depends upon deriving an inconsistency when certain maxims
are universalized. There are two basic problems for this derivation.
The first is the problem of applying the first formulation to maxims.
To which is it to be applied and to which should it not be applied?
The second is the problem of whether or not Kant can, as he claims,
derive a clear inconsistency in applying the first formulation. To see
the first problem, consider a wretched, starving person who makes a
promise which he knows he cannot keep to an extremely wealthy person
in order to get money for much-needed food and medicine. To what maxim
are we to apply the imperative? Is it to Kant's quite general maxim or
a more restricted one, such as:
Whenever I am starving and need food and medicine, and the only way to
get it is to make a deceitful promise, I will deceitfully promise a
wealthy person who can spare the money.
It is by no means clear that this is an immoral maxim even if the
person's intention in acting on it is in some way inconsistent with
his willing to universalize it.
Consider also a very sly universalizer who, whenever he makes a
deceitful promise, claims that his maxim is something like the
following:
Whenever anyone is six feet tall, has one blue and one brown eye, a
three-inch scar on his left cheek, a bullet wound in his right palm, a
gold ring in his left ear, and needs money, he is to borrow money and
make a deceitful promise to repay it.
What makes this universalizer sly is that the only person who fits
this description is himself. Furthermore, he claims that this maxim is
universal as it stands, for it is of the form:
Whenever anyone is X, he is to do Y.
which is the form of Kant's universalized maxim. Indeed, the maxim
applies to everyone who is X. It is only a contingent fact that only
he is X. Consequently, our universalizer, who uses this form with the
preceding description for all his maxims, finds that nothing is
forbidden and nothing is obligatory, because all his maxims are
universal. Thus, he can act on them and will them to be universal laws
without inconsistency. The obvious reply is that some restriction must
be placed on what we are allowed to substitute for 'X,' but it is not
clear how to allow a phrase such as 'desperately in need of food,' but
rule out the longer phrase invented by the sly universalizer.
- Another Objection: Cannot
Derive Specific Duties
The first is not the more serious problem, however, because it may be
possible to place a satisfactory restriction upon the application of
the imperative, but it is not clear how to avoid the second problem.
It is essential for Kant to derive some kind of inconsistency. The
most plausible example he gives is the case of deceitful promising,
but even here his derivation fails. There is an inconsistency only if
someone decides to deceive someone and also decides to do something
that stops him from deceiving the person. But the deception would not
be stopped if the only thing that were to happen is that the actions
of everyone who needed money became governed by a law requiring them
to make deceitful promises. If the person a liar was trying to deceive
did not know that there was such a law or did not realize that this
was a situation covered by the law about needing money, then there is
a very good chance that he would be deceived, especially if the
deceiver were clever. Even if this practice had been occurring
universally for centuries, there is, as the saying goes, "a sucker
born every minute." There is, unfortunately, very often little
resemblance between what people are willing to believe and the truth.
The problem is more evident in the second example, for to arrive at
the inconsistency Kant must claim that all of us desire someone to
help us when we are in trouble. If someone did not have this desire,
then his universalizing the maxim not to help another would not be
inconsistent with any of his desires. He would consequently not be
obligated to help others. Some people may not have this desire-people,
for example, who claim they belong to that almost mythical breed of
people known as rugged individualists. Kant can at most claim that we
nonrugged people would become involved in an inconsistency, but even
here problems arise. First there is, as before, the problem of
restricting the application of the imperative. Even if we specify in
the maxim merely the way in which help is needed, such as 'needs help
crossing the street,' some of us are at least rugged enough not to
desire this kind of help. Second, in absolving the rugged
individualist from responsibility for helping others, Kant seems to
condone what we might call the rugged individualist fallacy: Because I
need no help, and everyone should be like me, I have no obligation to
help anyone. Unfortunately, whatever we should all be, most of us are
not rugged individualists. We sometimes need help, and therefore there
are times others should help us whether or not they need help
themselves.
Serious difficulties, then, face Kant's first formulation of the
categorical imperative, difficulties that eliminate it as being itself
the basic moral imperative. However, we should not reject it entirely,
because it may be an im****tant element in a satisfactory formulation
of such an imperative.
Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction
by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
> What if we based our maxims on something particular about one group of
> people, such as race? My maxim would be, "If it happens that I am
> white, then I may..." This appears to be a flaw in the Categorical
> Imperative.
>
> For a long time, I did not know how Kant would respond, until I read
> this from an abridged translation about a kingdom of ends:
>
> "Laws determine certain ends as universal, and hence, *if abstraction
> is made from the individual differences of rational beings* (my
> emphasis) ... we get the idea of a complete totality of ends combined
> in a system ... we are able to conceive of a kingdom of ends ..."
>
> Let's discuss this.
>
> First of all, it is not clear what Kant means. Second, it has been
> said that genetic variety is im****tant for species survival. Third, we
> know that normal rules of duty cannot apply to people with certain
> disabilities. These are three problems that Kantians must face.
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