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Kant - categorical imperative

keda
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Posted 04/25/08 - 02:50 AM:	#1
Kant isn't saying that you should say anything, only that you should be truthful, which is not to say the truth but to not lie. Kant is not a consequentialist, but considers an action moral on the basis of its maxim, not its consequences. He states that a consequent death is an accident (meaning it is contingent on the maxim.) The telling of a lie in any circumstances however necessarily is in violation of all law and of humanity in every person and admission of such a right would be a revocal of all rights based on contract. For more information: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&s...
Free Europe Now How to fix your country The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin A prolonged peace favours the predominance of a mere commercial spirit, and with it a debasing self-interest, cowardice, and effeminacy, and tends to degrade the character of the nation. - Immanuel Kant

rakis
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Posted 04/25/08 - 06:57 AM:	#2
According to Kant the only moral acts are those done out of duty. Only categorical imperatives, which are unconditional on the actor’s context or on the consequences of the act, can be commands to duty and therefore moral rules. Categorical imperatives have the form: “You must do X.” Ηis basic distinction is between the phenomenal and the noumenal. The phenomenal will, like anything else in the world as we know it (the phenomenal world), is governed by natural causes. The will that commands us to duty is therefore not the will as we know it, the phenomenal will, but rather the will as it is in itself, apart from our means of knowing it, the noumenal will. The will as it is in itself, the noumenal will, is out of time and beyond causality because the categories do not apply to it. Inaccessible to the categories of the understanding, the noumenal will should, according to Kant’s own epistemology, be regarded as utterly unknowable, and the proper course would have been to maintain a respectful silence about it. Kant has thrown up an obscurantist shield to protect Christian morality from rational criticism of Christian beliefs. Kantian autonomy really means obedience to an internal authority—not an individual conscience, but a thoroughly impersonal “agency.” It means submission to the causeless, causally inefficacious, atemporal, inscrutable, and incomprehensible demands of the noumenal will.

Dr.Black
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Posted 04/28/08 - 10:50 AM:	#3
Just as a hopefully helpful follow-up to rakis' post, see this website for coherent information which expounds fairly well the ideas put forth: http://academics.vmi.edu/psy_dr/Kant%20for%20begi...

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