Kant's Universal Law

Have you accounted for the greed factor (radix omnium malorum est cupiditas)? Desire, some say, is a bottomless pit.

Quoting ohmyvanz

Maxim: All essential workers (healthcare, cleaners, garbage collectors) will be given a minimum wage to protect them from exploitation.

Using the universal law, what are your thoughts to debunk this argument?

[i]Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

—?Immanuel Kant,[/i]

So, what is the universal law you want to apply? Some choices:

• All workers should be given a minimum wage.
• All workers should be protected from exploitation.
• Everyone should be protected from exploitation.
• Everyone should be given a minimum income.
• Wage structure should be used to ensure society is provided with adequate essential services.
• Financial reward should be used to encourage desired behavior.
• Workers should be paid on the basis of the importance of the work they do.

Reply to ohmyvanz

Neither a proper maxim nor an example of a Kantian universal law.

Exploitation occurs when an owner of production means and production tools hires workers to work for a wage that is low and provides the owner with high income.

Who owns healthcare? Who owns cleanliness? Who owns sanitation?

True enough, one person may buy up all buckets and mops, and hire other persons to do the cleaning of dirty places, and exploit them.

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How do you set the minimum wage? At one billion dollar per hour for each worker? Surely no exploitation would occur. At a dollar an hour? Exploitation will occur. How do you set the minimum so it returns as much of the profit to the workers per head as it returns to the owner of ambulance vehicles, hospitals, lab equipment, beds, supplies, drugs and invoicing apparatus. This is also an incredibly hard situation to establish.

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Reply to ohmyvanz The maxim, as you state it, is consequentialist in nature, so I don't think Kant would be happy with its formulation.

Reread what you posted. Isn't there a purpose stated, and isn't that purpose a result of an act? Where does Kant write that this is the orientation one should take to one's permissible acts?