I was thinking about Kant today and I realised that the Categorical Imperative really is a flawless. The only major """"""""criticism"""""""" put forward is the Inquiring Murderer and Kant turned upside on its head and claimed that the dilemma was really just an extreme hypothetical example of the Categorical Imperative in practice.
I'm serious, all the criticisms I see are just opinions like "too dogmatic", "self righteous", or "overzealous".
So /his/, was Kant right? Are we dutifully obligated to never violate universal laws no matter how harmless they seem and uphold Good without hesitation?
Thinking about deleting all of my pirated books, video games and tv shows. He's got me pretty well convinced
>>1412881
>good
>le subjective axioms become objective through consistency
when will this meme die?
>Trying to make every single person follow his rules
What was his fucking problem?
>>1412952
>subjective axiom
Such as...?
>>1412957
>his rules
He rarely gave examples of the categorical imperative in action though. The only one that comes to mind is the act of telling a lie
>I was thinking about Kant today and I realised that the Categorical Imperative really is a flawless.
>So /his/, was Kant right?
Why are you asking this if you think it's flawless?
>>1412958
Your maxim.
>>1413004
But maxims are only relevant in so far as they prove to be universally applicable in all situations.
I have none
>>1412997
I was just utilising the Socratic Dialectic to make sure I wasn't potentially missing something :^)
>>1413030
There are none.
>>1413030
Your maxim is your principle of moral action. If you don't have a maxim you don't have an action of moral worth.
>>1413042
'I will not murder another human being'.
>>1413052
Define "murder".
>>1413077
Killing with intent.
>>1413081
Most people would agree that killing with intent is permissible:
- during a just war
- for self-defense
>>1412881
>I was thinking about Kant today and I realised that the Categorical Imperative really is a flawless.
Of course it's flawed. In real life, taking the time to consider the universal application of a choice before making it will render you literally incapable of acting.
It fails as actual moral advice. And, if you pay attention, people who still take the time to try to act on principle, still somehow manage to act in a way that always benefits themselves. Because humans are just like that, T. Nietzsche.
You see, ideas can be perfect in theory and terrible in application, and Kant's moral systems are some of those ideas. Ideas need to be practicable to have worth.
Also read up on Hegel's counter-argument to Kant, the idea that you can actually think through how anything could be applied universally, and you can understand the exceptions, and so forth, is utter nonsense and can't actually be done. Your mind is too small to see things at that scale.
>>1412881
https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/300/categorical.htm
>>1413091
There is no such thing as a just war and though killing in self defense is understandable that does not mean it is 'right' or deserving of approbation.
>>1413091
Nor does popular opinion vindicate evil. Rather, it tends to reproduce it on a massive scale.
>>1413091
Is that the limit of every example of just killing? Or is it only some examples? How can we possibly determine what all of the exceptions are?
>>1413092
>people who act on principles still benefit themselves
Wouldn't that be... you know... your opinion based on conjecture or confirmation bias?
>>1413092
Your maxims are to be determined prior to action, prior to your needing to determine them. That's what makes maxims useful or 'practicable'.
>>1413145
No.
>>1413160
Don't just give a shallow, two-second response. Go actually look at Hegel's criticism on this matter.
That is, if you're actually serious about morality, and not just posturing. Can you imagine if nobody took morality all that seriously and instead just acted on basic notions and egoism? Surely that would be a logical contradiction, ergo you should go read Hegel.
>>1413176
>No
That's bullshit. There's 6 billion people, at least of them have to operate on their principles or else we'd have never made it past the agricultural revolution
>>1413194
>That's bullshit.
No, humans are animals, we're driven by instincts, which are fully contradictory to reason and universal principles. Human reason is insanely limited. There is not a single person alive who actually can implement the CI.
>unconditioned ought
>>1413176
I'm on my phone. I'll get back to you at my leisure.
>>1413213
>Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made
Maybe you should actually read Kant before you start admonishing others for not sharing your opinion of him vis-a-vis the opinions of others.
>>1413245
Nice criticism. Got any other empty statements to make?
I like deontology, but I also like virtue and utility.
The fundamental problem with ethics to begin with is that I don't see how you can possibly convince enough people to accept certain moral axioms.
>>1413213
I disagree
>>1413257
Well a Kantian would, but all you have to do is look at the world to see I'm right. I would highly suggest you read Beyond Good and Evil, and some secondary literature on that because you probably won't get the criticisms at all the first time.
Nietzsche is a pretty good antidote to Kant.
>>1413253
Oh man,your totally roasting me and, by proxy, Kant right now. How will either of us ever recovery from this?
>>1413287
Oh man, I even typoed 'you're' as 'your'. Check mate.
>>1413213
>>1413245
Kant is acutely aware of the fallibilty of mankind. That is precisely why we must seek the fundamental principle of morality in reason. That reason is opposed to animality poses no problem for Kant; it is an operating assumption for him.
That you will not succeed does not mean you should not try. You try. You fail. You try again. You fail better.
That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they are—how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childish and childlike they are,—but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"—and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical imperative"—makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers.
>>1413374
That's an asinine project, stiff, loathful of life and its ambiguities. Maybe some of us like humanity exactly as it is, and the restrictive moralities of bad-backed philosophers degrades life itself.
>>1413374
>Kant is acutely aware of the fallibilty of mankind.
>That is precisely why we must seek the fundamental principle of morality in reason.
>>1413092
I may be way off with my understanding of kant but aren't you supposed to contemplate the universal application of maxim to see if there is a fault or internal contradiction in the concept itself and not the consequences of such an application? if it became universal for everyone to lie then there would be no concept of truth and thus the concept of lying itself would also disappear. Therefore lying should not be a universal maxim. The consideration of the maxim becoming universal is not about thinking HOW this would come about.
>>1413410
By the law of nature section, yeah, still not a practicable belief system, I like Hegel's critique that it's an "empty formalism".
>>1413410
Also there's really nothing convincing to me that there's any absolute, indisputable contradictions in any of his universalizations.
>>1413387
Cute.
>>1413506
>Kantian acts like a twit.
Well color me surprised.
>>1413396
Because it will hold is to a universal standard regardless of our particular inclinations.
Yes, human beings are capable of tendentious and self-serving reasoning. It is always specious.
>>1413517
Keep raging against a dead horse.
>Superior objective moral framework coming through :^)
>>1412881
I don't know what people are even talking about when they separate morality from God.
I mean, you can make some interesting mathematical systems, but if they're not binding in some way (by reference to the fulfillment of human purpose in God), then what's the point?
Atheists are always saying "I don't need God to do good, it makes me feel good to do good". Well okay, in that case, just do what makes you feel good. You don't need a system.
>>1412881
It assumes that there is a universal good for all humans according to their humanity, instead of realizing that humans are concretely distinct and require distinct moral systems in order to correspond to their own unique social, political, biological, and religious situations.
Fuck the enlightenment and its totalitarian homogenization of human beings at the lowest common denominator.
