Question on categorical imperative

Quoting BlueBanana

However, why can't the circumstances be a part of the law? How do the supporters of Kant decide just how generic or specific the categorical imperative is?

I would say some conception of circumstances *must* be part of the formulation of the maxim.

As I recall, this is an old line of critique of Kant's categorical imperative. On its own the categorical imperative is (at best) a sort of empty formalism. We need something else to provide content to our moral judgments.

I suppose each Kantian fills in the blank his own way, drawing as much as he can manage from the rest of Kant's imaginative philosophy.

Quoting BlueBanana

This is supposed to mean that the circumstances of the action shouldn't matter.

What makes you think this?
There is nothing to say that the exact circumstances of the action are not important - far from it.
The point about the CI is that it suggests you do not make special exceptions for yourself.
If you think that killing is okay in some circumstances, then those same circumstances equally apply to yourself.
E.g. being hung for murder means that you should have to face the same penalty.

Reply to charleton That's a new interpretation to me. According to this view, would lying to a murderer to save the victim then be considered moral because of the circumstances? Kant rejected this in Kritik der praktischen Vernunft.

Quoting BlueBanana

That's a new interpretation to me. According to this view, would lying to a murderer to save the victim then be considered moral because of the circumstances?

Depends if he thought that doing this was generally okay. For example. Killing is generally okay if you are in a state of war; or a butcher killing an animal. He is saying that soldiers fighting wars are able to ignore the rule against killing/ The CI insists that since you accept that it also means that enemy soldiers attacking Austria also enjoy that exception to the rule of killing, and may kill Austrians morally.
See how this works?

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Kant's pirmary objective is to make moral laws as immutable & universal as the so-called laws of nature. Have you seen anything, anything at all, violate the law of universal gravitation? In Kant's eye an inanimate object obeying every law of nature applicable to it to the tee is perfectly moral as it has, and probably never did and never will, make an exception of itself (re the categorical imperative).

Worth noting is that miracles are, as per Hume, violations of the laws of nature i.e. the divine/god(s) have, for the most part of recorded theology, been associated with, let's just say, illegal activities such as resurrections, walking on water, so on and so forth.

God(s) is/are outlaw(s) in Kantian ethics. Loki (the god of mischief) comes to mind. We need to make (an) arrest(s), pronto!

Quoting Agent Smith

Kant's pirmary objective is to make moral laws as immutable & universal as the so-called laws of nature. Have you seen anything, anything at all, violate the law of universal gravitation? In Kant's eye an inanimate object obeying every law of nature applicable to it to the tee is perfectly moral as it has, and probably never did and never will, make an exception of itself (re the categorical imperative).

Worth noting is that miracles are, as per Hume, violations of the laws of nature i.e. the divine/god(s) have, for the most part of recorded theology, been associated with, let's just say, illegal activities such as resurrections, walking on water, so on and so forth.

God(s) is/are outlaw(s) in Kantian ethics. Loki (the god of mischief) comes to mind. We need to make (an) arrest(s), pronto!

I find the two different methods of comparing observation to laws interesting.

On the one had you have the stance that if there is a violation of what we know to be the law, then the violation is wrong. A lot of moral law theories that claim objective moral laws fall under this.

On the other hand you have the stance that if there is a violation of what we know to be the law, our knowledge of the law is wrong, and it is time to come up with a new theory. The scientific method comes under this.

At it's core is the stance of whether objects can violate natural laws? On the one side is the answer "no," hence if you see a violation of a natural law, your understanding of the natural law is wrong. The other side says "yes," and if you see a violation of natural law, then you can judge the object's behaviour wrong.

Quoting Agent Smith

Kant's primary objective is to make moral laws as immutable & universal as the so-called laws of nature. Have you seen anything, anything at all, violate the law of universal gravitation? In Kant's eye an inanimate object obeying every law of nature applicable to it to the tee is perfectly moral as it has, and probably never did and never will, make an exception of itself (re the categorical imperative).

Good point. The flip side of absolute natural laws is that they are not relative. This may seem obvious, but similar elimination of relativity from more modern Aristotelian philosophical models would be significant, and enlightened God-free religions should then leap to adopt such simple and beguiling alternative.

Can this brilliant proposal of a natural ethical universal work, or is it only acceptable to a degree in any conceivable circumstances? From a classical relativist perspective, the answer is good try but no. And that is why endless practical scenarios can be introduced to demonstrate why not.

Reply to magritte Like Daniel Bonevac, says in a video, there are two kinds of approaches to morality:

1. The Ideal: Everything's picture-postcard perfect! The world and ethics are fully compatible, they dovetail into each other - a marriage made in heaven :wink:

2. The Non-Ideal: Bonevac uses the word "broken" - the world, as it was/is not exactly an environment conducive to morality, even if it were dialed down to the barest minimum. The question then, he says, is "how do we fix it?"

Quoting BlueBanana

That's a new interpretation to me. According to this view, would lying to a murderer to save the victim then be considered moral because of the circumstances? Kant rejected this in Kritik der praktischen Vernunft.

Murderer at the door example of Kant. Always wrong to lie even to save someone's life.