The categorical imperative is cute but doesn’t work. It ignores all context for actions and assumes all people are pretty much the same.
A surgeon is allowed to cut open people in an attempt to save them, me a person not medically trained is not allowed to do that. If you applied the rule “to save a person I am allowed to attempt to operate on them and do my best” to every person we would be in serious trouble.
If I do a small bad thing it will prevent a very bad thing from happening. The categorical imperative forces me to ignore that fact.
Also doesn’t really match how social animals operate and instead demands that we ignore how we are treated in our responses.
I want people to be kind to each other. This particular person is never kind to me. The categorical imperative tells me that I am not supposed to take that into account and instead just shower resources on someone who has shown no appreciation for them in hopes that they eventually see the error of their ways. Despite having a winning strategy.
Basically it puts way too much on people and demands that they be lawful stupid.
Somebody who isn’t a pedant would interpret that as “All trained surgeons performing this procedure on their respective patients with the same condition would be fine. So me, a trained surgeon, performing this procedure is also fine.”
Sure you can do that and you can keep doing that until you get whatever result you want.
People shouldn’t steal, people shouldn’t steal unless it is emergency, people shouldn’t steal unless it is an emergency or a very strong need, people shouldn’t steal unless it is an emergency or a very strong need or the ownership is disputed…
The problem with the categorical imperative is that it isn’t contextual, advocates will argue that it is its strength, the solution is to just add context which of course you are free to do, but it is no longer the categorical imperative.
Edit: worth noting that Kant was a Christian who really emphasized salvation through morality. Which would mean if Kant saw a chance for you to do the right thing even if it kills you he would say do it since your soul matters much more than your body ever could. This type of non-contextual lawful stupid morality was very common in that tradition.
For the first I think not being trained and having the knowledge of surgery is categorically different, so I don’t think that critiques holds up.
For your last point i think the rationalzation would be: “Punishing people for bad behavior is something that if everyone did would be good.”
Your second point holds more water and is the standard critique (and my personal stance) on it though. My only critique against it use is that I think too often people think they and their circumstances to exceptional and they more clever then they are.
For the first I think not being trained and having the knowledge of surgery is categorically different, so I don’t think that critiques holds up.
Rule is don’t do anything unless you want it to be universal. It doesn’t say if the training levels are different.
For your last point i think the rationalzation would be: “Punishing people for bad behavior is something that if everyone did would be good.”
Right except this won’t work. We can’t have the entire population be judge, jury, and executor. Which means we have to designate certain segments of the population to be specialized in punishing people. Breaking the universal nature of the categorical imperative.
The whole thing can’t be fixed. It lacks all context so what people try to do is add context in. And the reason why it lacks all context was Kant was working backwards. He wanted the thou shall and thou shall nots morality of the bible without God given revelation. The only way to pull this off was make man replace god, all powerful and all weak at the same time. Humans were to be their own judge of what was right and wrong with no one’s opinion better than anyone else’s. At the same time any rule they declared they were bound so strongly that it crippled them. Morality isn’t a way for humans to live happy lives with each other, morality is to be a chain that we ourselves made and bound ourselves with.
Don’t worry however, sure you had to watch your kid die of starvation rather than steal bread, Kant is firmly convinced God will even the score in heaven.
I think the CI is far from a universal law that solves all problems. But I do think it can be among a set of useful tests to judge an action. I’m not sure the surgeon example is in good faith - a reasonable interpretation might be “Help others to the extent that you are trained and able to”, which gets you pretty close to most Good Samaritan laws.
Most imperatives taken literally and expected to fit every situation and interpretation will fall apart quickly, I think this one is no better or worse than others. Probably the way I’ve internalized it is different from how it was originally intended, too!
The categorical imperative is cute but doesn’t work. It ignores all context for actions and assumes all people are pretty much the same.
A surgeon is allowed to cut open people in an attempt to save them, me a person not medically trained is not allowed to do that. If you applied the rule “to save a person I am allowed to attempt to operate on them and do my best” to every person we would be in serious trouble.
If I do a small bad thing it will prevent a very bad thing from happening. The categorical imperative forces me to ignore that fact.
Also doesn’t really match how social animals operate and instead demands that we ignore how we are treated in our responses.
Basically it puts way too much on people and demands that they be lawful stupid.
Somebody who isn’t a pedant would interpret that as “All trained surgeons performing this procedure on their respective patients with the same condition would be fine. So me, a trained surgeon, performing this procedure is also fine.”
Sure you can do that and you can keep doing that until you get whatever result you want.
People shouldn’t steal, people shouldn’t steal unless it is emergency, people shouldn’t steal unless it is an emergency or a very strong need, people shouldn’t steal unless it is an emergency or a very strong need or the ownership is disputed…
The problem with the categorical imperative is that it isn’t contextual, advocates will argue that it is its strength, the solution is to just add context which of course you are free to do, but it is no longer the categorical imperative.
Edit: worth noting that Kant was a Christian who really emphasized salvation through morality. Which would mean if Kant saw a chance for you to do the right thing even if it kills you he would say do it since your soul matters much more than your body ever could. This type of non-contextual lawful stupid morality was very common in that tradition.
For the first I think not being trained and having the knowledge of surgery is categorically different, so I don’t think that critiques holds up.
For your last point i think the rationalzation would be: “Punishing people for bad behavior is something that if everyone did would be good.”
Your second point holds more water and is the standard critique (and my personal stance) on it though. My only critique against it use is that I think too often people think they and their circumstances to exceptional and they more clever then they are.
Rule is don’t do anything unless you want it to be universal. It doesn’t say if the training levels are different.
Right except this won’t work. We can’t have the entire population be judge, jury, and executor. Which means we have to designate certain segments of the population to be specialized in punishing people. Breaking the universal nature of the categorical imperative.
The whole thing can’t be fixed. It lacks all context so what people try to do is add context in. And the reason why it lacks all context was Kant was working backwards. He wanted the thou shall and thou shall nots morality of the bible without God given revelation. The only way to pull this off was make man replace god, all powerful and all weak at the same time. Humans were to be their own judge of what was right and wrong with no one’s opinion better than anyone else’s. At the same time any rule they declared they were bound so strongly that it crippled them. Morality isn’t a way for humans to live happy lives with each other, morality is to be a chain that we ourselves made and bound ourselves with.
Don’t worry however, sure you had to watch your kid die of starvation rather than steal bread, Kant is firmly convinced God will even the score in heaven.
I think the CI is far from a universal law that solves all problems. But I do think it can be among a set of useful tests to judge an action. I’m not sure the surgeon example is in good faith - a reasonable interpretation might be “Help others to the extent that you are trained and able to”, which gets you pretty close to most Good Samaritan laws.
Most imperatives taken literally and expected to fit every situation and interpretation will fall apart quickly, I think this one is no better or worse than others. Probably the way I’ve internalized it is different from how it was originally intended, too!
Cool. Except the man who came up with it doesn’t agree with you.
As I mentioned before. Do what you want but unless you are following it universally you aren’t following it.