"Immortalist" <reanimater_2000@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1187324872.436922.278930@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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.
Excellent post, as usual, Immortalist.
A.
>
>
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