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I rewrote this article completely and replaced the existing version. The old version and its talk are archived at Categorical imperative/temp. -- malathion talk 07:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I like your article a lot, however I feel that the part about abortion and animal rights expresses your personal point of view. I agree with this statement: "Only rational and autonomous beings are held to have intrinsic worth under this account, and objects or creatures that are not autonomous are held to have no moral worth at all" From this you conclude that animals and fetus have no intrinsic moral value. But this conclusion may only be drawn, if you knew for sure that animals and fetus are non-rational beings. How do you know? I'm sorry, but you really don't know. For a Kantian philosopher a human being acquires a moral status, once it becomes a rational being having a free will. But, when does this happen? Nobody really knows for sure. In somewhat religious terms, one may ask: When does the soul enter the human body? Kilian Klaiber
I would have to agree about the abortion section. I agree that Kant would probably have followed the line of reasoning you describe, but I don't think that including that section is warranted without citing direct textual support from a work by or about Kant, and I don't personally know of any work arguing that Kant would have held such a position. -BLC
I'm considering making the following changes to this article, and would like to hear your thoughts:
First, the Formula of Humanity as an End is erroneously described here as the second formulation, when it is in fact the third. This certainly ought to be corrected.
On that note, it only seems appropriate to add the second, fourth, and fifth formulations. I possess the James W. Ellington translation, which I notice is already cited in this article, and so will happily do this.
I also notice that the section about the golden rule is completely uncited, and I'm also uncertain about its relevance to the article. Though it would be great to include some responses to the CI in this article, like Philippa Foot's, I'm not sure about that one. If someone doesn't come up with citations, I may remove it.
Finally, I don't think the section on Eichmann is relevant enough to include, and I'm also inclined to remove it.
Opinions?
I would say personally that the categorical imperative inherently is multiple universes and dimensions. When you think of people you think of emotions which are impossible to measure like a drug such as nostalgia which is based on the past and not the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.210.82.57 ( talk) 01:59, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
-A B.A. in philosophy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bardcollegerulez ( talk • contribs) 23:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I know this discussion is rather passe, but I was just about to comment that the Eichmann business seems too peripheral to be relevant here. It should be edited or removed. Daedalus 96 ( talk) 03:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, this word doesn't seem to appear in any dictionary, and yet it gets 11,000 Google hits [1], including academic publications. It also appears several times on Plato [2].
I'm not sure which version is better; I just wanted to point this out. -- causa sui talk 19:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
"Universalisability" is the concept developed by R.M. Hare, and shouldn't be confused with Kant's notion of universality (they're closely related, but not the same). It is most certainly a word, though (perhaps the U.S. "z" was the problem? I've often seen it spelt that way, though), and has been in use since the early/mid twentieth century. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 10:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Added a NPOV template since the earlier section about objections [3] has been deleted and the supposed link about criticism do not show any. Ultramarine 16:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Could we please have some Diffs and explanation for the NPOV banner? Banno 21:43, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the problem is with the Deontological ethics article, rather than this one. However, I feel that some of the criticisms which were cut out should be put back in SOMEWHERE, rather than simply deleted from one article and NOT inserted into the other, where it is claimed they should go. I am sure the criticisms have many problems, as did the rest of the article (which now looks good BTW). I have put all of them, in toto, into Deontological Ethics. I suppose I would appreciate a better reason for deleting them rather than 'they should be somewhere else'. WhiteC 18:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
This is pretty good, I'd say. I've made one or two minor changes,; the only point at which I have more serious reservations concerns the comments on property and lying in perfect duty, but I'll think about that, and come back to it later. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 10:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
For Mel:
I don't understand what this means. It seems to be self-contradictory. -- causa sui talk 23:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
The current discussion seems to be discussing "perfect duty" as being due to logical contradictions ("logical annihilation"), which is one of the major interpretations, but not the only one. Christine Korsgaard (one of the better-known latter-day Kantians) argues fairly strongly for a "Practical Contradition" rather than "Logical Contradiction" interpretation, and there is a third interpretation (another "[x] Contradiction") that slips my mind at the moment. I will have to refresh my memory before diving into the article though, unless someone here is more knowledgeable... -- Delirium 04:25, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
I added a "stub" Criticism section in order to get the ball rolling. It needs to be polished up by those with more knowledge of Kant and more experience writing WP articles.
-- jrcagle 22:12, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
(1) (humorous aside) The original objections section [6] is already loose in the wild: [7].
(2) I've already indicated that I think that the CI can be subject to traditional ethical criticism, such as that of Constant.
(3) I agree that much of the "Objections" section has the appearance of original research. Perhaps all that is needed is clearer citations, or else a more careful re-writing. However, the skeleton of headings in the "Objections" section is (a) fair, (b) historically accurate in that real people did raise those objections specifically at Kant, and (c) helpful to someone trying to learn about Kant.
(4) Because Kantian ethics is a subset of Deontological Ethics, it is improper (IMO!) to have a section entitled "criticisms of Kant" in the Deontological Ethics article. That is, unless you want to begin enumerating *all* deontological theories and their criticisms there. :-)
It's just an organizational complaint, I think -- unless you have a Reason for sticking criticisms of Kant over in deontology. Then it's POV. Heh.
(5) I'm not sure if the point makes sense to me. I understand "normative ethics" (of which Kant is considered a subset: (quick Google) [8], [9]) to be very different from "applied ethics", so I got lost in the connect. Sorry to be obtuse.
-- jrcagle 01:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't like the criticism section. It mainly states the opinion that the concept of freedom and a deterministic world are incompatible. This is not really directly related to the categorical imperative. This is a general philosophical problem, which must be adressed in any ethical system. Kant apparently believed that a deterministic phenomenal world does not rule out a non-deterministice (free) noumenal world. Therefore, he believed freedom is possible, however he failed to prove that man is free. The criticism section seems to refute this idea. But what is the link to the categorical imperative? The categorical imperative is not valid because man is not free? Well, in this case any ethical system would be a hoax. This criticism may be moved to the Kant article. Maybe someone might try to argue that the term freedom is linked to the categorical imperative in the autonomy formulation. The term autonomous means self legislating. It is a particular kind of freedom and not freedom per se. There is an article about free will, that's where this topic should be discussed. Kikl 09:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
My point is, if freedom collapses any ethical theory not just Kant's ethical theory collapses. Therefore it is not immediately related to the categorical imperative. It is related to any ethical theory. I know that free will is central to Kant's philosophy. But the criticism section doesn't deal at all with the categoricalimperative, its justification or its implications. It deals with Kant's arguments for believing that a free will may exist in a deterministic phenomenal world. I think the criticism section as it is fits better to an article dealing with free will per se. ( Kikl 23:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC))
Good point, as far as I know Kant seems to suggest that not acting according to the categorical imperative means not acting autonomously. I've come across the same argument and I remember that Kant introduced different concepts of freedom, negative freedom (=freedom of choice) and positive freedom (=autonomy). Many more points could be criticized. The neglect of consequences of actions. The formalistic approach to ethics. Kant neglected the meaning of feelings and valued only rational motives. Kant's focus on the good will, the motive of the action. The examples discussed by Kant. Kant's claim that there is only a single categorical imperative whereas the different formulations seem to introduce new concepts (end in itself, kingdom of ends, autonomy, natural law, perfect duties/imperfect duties) ... ( Kikl 23:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)).
Quote: "The article already mentions that Kant regards consequences as irrelevant and the reader can decide for his or her self whether that is a problem; there is no need to introduce it as a criticism." I don't buy this argument. First of all, the criticism section should only contain criticism of what Kant actually believed. Therefore, it is not surprising that the reader should come across this proposition before it is criticised. Secondly, anybody can judge for himself, whether he follows Kant in his arguments. In this case, we may get rid of the criticism section altogether. The relationship among the different formulations is a topic of discussion. In my mind the "end in itself" formulation departs from the concept that the only content of the categorical imperative is the form of the law (universalizability). See: " http://ethics.sandiego.edu/video/USD/Kant2003/Allison/index.html( Kikl 10:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC))
I'm surprised to hear that neglecting the consequences hasn't been criticised. Here's another link: http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/rhl/maria.html, one more link, I highly recommend: http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/macintyre_1994.pdf
Okay, I did some research and found what I think is a criticism of whether the Categorical Imperative exists. I quote from Onora O'Neill's article/chapter 14 "Kantian Ethics", which is contained in Blackwell's Companions to Philosophy: A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer. This particular quote is from p180:
This seems to me to be a metaphysical objection based on an incompatibilist view of free-will -v- determinism. Kant apparently did not give a compatibilist response to this objection--I'll continue the quote:
A long quote--sorry. I'll wait for any advice on how much of this I should quote directly from O'Neill and how much I should paraphrase--(there is a third paragraph in which she claims that Kant later changed the form of his rebuttal in "The End of All Things"). Or any basic objections to the argument, or my interpretation of it. WhiteC 07:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion Mrs. O'Neil's criticism deals with Kant's conception of the possibility of freedom. If man were not free, he would have no moral obligations. Consequently, the categorical imperative would not apply. But, freedom is far more fundamental. It ist not just a necessary conception for Kant's moral philosophy. It is central for moral philosophy per se, since it is useless to conceive of moral vs. immoral actions or maxims if the moral agent (actor) may not obey the moral rules due to his lack of freedom.
Comment: I think Kant's argument for the imperfect duties is less consequentialist than the summary suggests. As I read him, his point is that although being a rational agent doesn't commit one to any particular goals, one can't be a rational agent without having some goals or other. Since having a goal rationally commits one to aiming at the means to one's goal, being a rational agent rationally commits one to aiming at all-purpose means, i.e. means that are generally useful regardless of what particular goals one may have. (This isn't a consequentialist argument because it makes no appeal to to the value of the goals; it's a purely conceptual point.) Hence any rational agent is committed a) to desiring to be generally helpful/useful to herself, and b) to want other people to be generally helpful/useful to her; universalised, these yield duties of self-improvement and of charity. -- BerserkRL
Some anon just gave the article a big rewrite. I'm not sure if the new version is better. Seems like some material is worth incorporating though. -- causa sui talk 14:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
On a second reading, some of this looks quite good, barring some writing style problems. -- causa sui talk 15:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Some more thoughts:
This just seems dead wrong. I don't think Kant was deriving the first formulation from "common sense morality" but he simply thought our common sense morality was in line with the categorical imperative, or our moral intuitions were moving in that direction already. I think this section is very unclear.
This is describing the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty, but I am not sure how this explains the distinction any better than the previous version. I think it would be more confusing to the unititiated reader.
This doesn't explain how the mean-as-end formulation is derived from the first formulation, a vital step in my mind.
Again, this will make no sense to the uninitiated reader.
-- causa sui talk 15:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The titles say it all. Ultramarine 16:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
If you want to know their feelings, you might want to ask them. I don't agree with your interpretation. In any case, those criticisms apply to Kant's ethics broadly, which is not the subject of this article. They belong somewhere on Wikipedia, but not in this article. -- causa sui talk 17:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I am aware that I do not own this article, and my argument is not that it can't be added because it isn't already there. I'll try one last idea for resolving this: Given that the criticisms are attacks on deontological ethics and not the categorical imperative itself, why do you think this article is a better place for those criticisms than Deontological ethics? -- causa sui talk 19:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this article would benefit from a section relating the different forms Kant related that the CI test can formally take: the contradiction in coneption test (CC) and the contradiction in the will test (CW). I think these tests relate directly to the FUL (hence the emphasis on contradiction, which is directly opposed to unviersalizability), but am not that familiar with their chracterizations, so am refraining from writing the section myself until I can do some further research. Shaggorama 09:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Here are my reasons. The reader will actually recognize that Delaney has reintroduced the section about abortion and animal rights although several user's have hinted at the fact that his opinion is speculative and there is no textual support for his opinion. Nevertheless Delaney = Malathion reintroduced this section without giving textual support. It seems appropriate to delete this.
I rewrote this article completely and replaced the existing version. The old version and its talk are archived at Categorical imperative/temp. --malathion talk 07:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I like your article a lot, however I feel that the part about abortion and animal rights expresses your personal point of view. I agree with this statement: "Only rational and autonomous beings are held to have intrinsic worth under this account, and objects or creatures that are not autonomous are held to have no moral worth at all" From this you conclude that animals and fetus have no intrinsic moral value. But this conclusion may only be drawn, if you knew for sure that animals and fetus are non-rational beings. How do you know? I'm sorry, but you really don't know. For a Kantian philosopher a human being acquires a moral status, once it becomes a rational being having a free will. But, when does this happen? Nobody really knows for sure. In somewhat religious terms, one may ask: When does the soul enter the human body? Kilian Klaiber
This is a problem with writing style. When I wrote the original article, I was saying "according to Kant" almost every third sentence and it was getting tedious. Therefore, I wrote at the top of the article that "[The argument] is outlined here according to the arguments therein." and removed a bunch of the qualifiers. If you can think of a better way to clarify this, I would appreciate it. --malathion talk 04:39, 13 August 2005 (UTC) I would have to agree about the abortion section. I agree that Kant would probably have followed the line of reasoning you describe, but I don't think that including that section is warranted without citing direct textual support from a work by or about Kant, and I don't personally know of any work arguing that Kant would have held such a position. -BLC
Kikl 17:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Well I am starting to doubt your good will. You have been criticized many times for introducing your personel point of view and weasel words to the article. Nevertheless you continue doing that. Your recent changes start with the proposition: "The interpretation of the categorical imperative is, in most cases, descriptive and uncontroversial" How can you say something like that? "in most case"... What is a descriptive interpretation? Uncontroversial, that is simply not true. How can you say the interpretation of the categorical imperative is uncontroversial and then talk about all the controversies?
If you remember our recent discussion, I said that there was controversy about Kant's claim that there is only a single categorical imperative. You're response was I quote "I think, and I doubt you will find any sources that make this kind of attack" How can you say that? Please look at what you've written: "That is, the murderer who asks Jim where his victim is does not know that Jim knows he is a murderer, so this maxim could be conceived as a universal law of nature with no problem at all. However, Korsgaard goes on to argue that the lie is nevertheless morally impermissible, because it contradicts perfect duty interpreted through the second formulation." The different formulations apparently lead to different consequences, at least according to Mrs. Korsgaard.
The abortion section is POV, pleas read the first paragraph of this article. If this is Mrs. Korsgaard interpretation of the categorical imperative, then this should be mentioned explicitely and all references to Kant should be deleted. I do remember that Kant said something about treating animals, but I'm not so sure what it was. I'll find out.In my opinion, the universal oath-breaking and Eudomonia sections are really bad. Oath breaking is an action and not a maxim. The categorical imperative is about unversalizing maxims and not actions. Therefore, the whole starting point of the argument is false. Then Mr. Ross seems to suggests theat the consequences of universal oath breaking would lead to a world just as effective and reliable as a world where everyone kept their promises. That's a consequentialist argument isn't it. I don't know Mr. Ross, but his criticism, at least what I can tell, is not worth quoting. The same must be said about Mrs. Rand's argument: "The deduction that the entire human race has a duty to die is entirely consistent with the Categorical Imperative provided that the deducer agrees that he himself, or she herself, has a duty to die too." That is a circular argument which presupposes what it is trying to prove. The presupposition is "provided that the deducer agrees that he himself has a duty to die". Deducing a duty shold be the result of the application of the categorical imperative and not the presupposition. This is just nonsense.
Therefore, I think that the abortion section should be completely changed. It should be clear that Kant didn't (as far as I know) put forward an opinion with regard to abortion, DNA and what have you. If this is Mrs. Korsgaards opinion, I feel it may be included to the article as Mrs. Korsgaards opinion.
Best regards
Kikl 23:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I changed the paragraph. If you would like to quote from the "metaphysics of morals", please get an english translation. I don't want to translate the paragraph, because it's very difficult. Kikl 18:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
A quick comment on my changes, since this section is in dispute: The claim that non-rational objects or agents (is there a non-rational agent?) "have no moral value at all" is plainly false. In fact, the "intrinisic moral value" of rational agents is valid only because it is necessitated by the only thing with intrinsic moral value, in the more traditional sense, reason (all this, of course, following Kant's account, e.g. the derivation of the second formulation of the categorical imperative, and not my own). It is because non-rational objects and agents do not possess intrinsic moral value (or, rather, universally valid moral value) that Kant derives a prohibition against cruelty to animals based on one's duty to oneself. That abortion shares the same fate is possibly a controversial topic, since Kant himself (as far as I know) never made any pronouncements on abortion. However, this argument has been convincingly advanced by Don Marquis. Whether this is all that can be said from a Kantian perspective on abortion is an open question, but probably a subject that would be labled "original research". Ig0774 09:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
@ If0774: Thank you very much for adding reasonable changes to the article and providing sound arguments. Best regards Kikl 09:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
@Delaney "which is why I wish I had a citation for this" That's a good point. Unfortunately, you don't find it necessary to add citations to your remarks on the page. I wish you would start doing that instead of speculating on Kant's stand on abortion. Best regards Kikl 14:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
You introduced the recent adddition. Therefore, you are responsible. Therefore, you should provide evidence, in particular citation. If no evidence is provided, then the unsubstantiated paragraphs should be deleted. Best regards, Kikl 19:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not responsible for providing citations for the paragraphs you introduced. You are responsible and don't blame other people. If you can't find any citations, then please delete these unsupported paragraphs. Best Regards Kikl 21:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
This text "Several philosophers have criticized these normative interpretations as incompatible with a realistic moral philosophy." was removed, because the 'several philosophers' have not been identified, and this is not NPOV. I also feel that the intro to the previous section shows Kant's attitude to normative criticisms quite well. WhiteC 14:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
At present, the "Eudaimonia assumed" section seems unclear. I also think it's irrelevant. Some anonymous editor dropped it in on 2 Jan 2005 and it's been unimproved since. Is there some reason it's been kept? I can think of one, but I'd rather believe it's an oversight. — vivacissamamente 21:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
This section contains what seems (to a layman like me) an unfair dismissal of Beck's argument: "Of course [Back's] imperative is actually hypothetical, but the condition is merely omitted. One could say that you should always inscribe your name inside a new book, if you want it to be returned." One *could* say that, but that's not what Beck said. People *could* tack their own hypotheticals on to any proposed categorical. this feeds into the dicussion of the Rand argument as well. In short, every categorial imperative includes some presumption of "the good", which could be rendered as a hypothetical. Example: "You should never lie, *if* you don't want to destroy the meaning of language." 63.166.224.67 16:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Sucide was mentioned in the article with Kant's application of the C.I. to it. Kant also applied the C.I. to three other moral issues (promises, charity, and laziness) in Grounding and thus I added them to the article, albeit while not realizing I didn't auto sign-in on this PC. Good book for $5, and it came with the essay On a Supposed Right to Lie... Sabar 21:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Wow, this page has improved considerably, since Mr. Delaney has stopped editing it. Good Work! Kikl 14:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In interpreting the CI, there has been an almost word for word duplication of information between Deception and Intent to break promise. Could we combine these two points since they really do speak of the same thing?— Red Baron 15:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
That is a glaring problem with this page. Someone should definitely take care of this when he can find the time to do so. PeterMottola 13:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Just because our grammatical laws allow a sentence to be structured in some way, doesn't mean we ever should structure it so. Would it surprise us if Kant wrote so himself? Should we not say "I must drink something, if I wish to satisfy my thirst"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.72.122 ( talk) 14:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Why aren't the fourth and fifth Formulations of the Categorical Imperative on this page? They may not be considered as important as the first three, but I'd still like to know what they are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaronfledge17 ( talk • contribs) 16:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
No problem. They are the Formula of the Law of Nature (Grounding, p. 30, Ak. 421) and the Formula of Autonomy (p. 44, Ak. 440). And they are actualy the second and fifth in order, by the way. They go like this:
"Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature."
And
"Always choose in such a way that in the same volition the maxims of choice are at the same time present as universal law."
I'll withhold my interpretation of these, however.
192.246.234.245 ( talk) 02:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Both the examples (stealing and lying) appear daft, on my first reading. First, all the stealing in the world can not eliminate property. If you take every man-made thing I have I can just go and grab a flower from the park or a pet from forest and call it my property. The amount of matter in this world is too large to be entirely appropriated. Second, if everybody stole, the property would merely play musical chairs among the thieves, not disappear. Third, one can not prove that there is no property left. Maybe you did not look hard enough? Regarding lying, the article says "...there must be language, but the universalization of lying would destroy the meaning of language." Lying admits degrees in severity and frequency. Most of us (i.e., those of us who are aware that lying exists) have the faculty to deal with this; to infer the truth from what has been said, rather than admitting it on a superficial level. A more mundane disproof is that everybody lies but language has not ceased to exist. As I said, it is a matter of severity and frequency.-- Adoniscik ( talk) 20:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I second the previous post's complaint regarding the example of stealing. Furthermore, "it is permissible to steal" is not a maxim. A maxim must take the form of "I, the agent, will A in C in order to achieve E" where ‘A’ is some type of act, ‘C’ is some type of circumstance, and ‘E’ is some type of end that is achieved by A in C.
However, Kant uses the example of lying to demonstrate a perfect duty in the Groundwork. Why should we not use it in the article? After all, lying is premised on the notion that the listener will believe the lie to be the truth. If everyone were to lie, no listener would believe the statements made by others to be true, and the notion that lying is premised upon would cease to exist. That is where the contradiction in conception lies. It has nothing to do with destroying the meaning of language.
Lyndonentwistle ( talk) 18:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
What does Kant mean by this, in phrases such as "Now he asks the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature."? The laws of nature, in the sense of the term I am familiar with, are not a matter of choice. Perhaps if he had said "be" instead of "become"...-- Adoniscik ( talk) 21:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
In the intro the article compares Kantian morality/deontology to utilitarianism. This seems implausible historically. I mean Kant was older than Jeremy Bentham. His works on morality precededs Bentham's and certainly Mill's. What do you guys think about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.195.11 ( talk) 05:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
The 3rd edition, translated by James W. Ellington, published 1993 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc is actually named "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals." All specific references given by this article refer specifically to the edition I just named and page numbers referenced also refer specifically to this 3rd edition by Ellington (I checked each and every one of them, footnote & page). Therefore, I changed the names of the work throughout this article to "Grounding for..."
So that I can be responded to, my name is Dan. 04:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
At the end of the section "Good will, duty, and the categorical imperative", the article states that "an act can have moral content if, and only if, it is carried out solely with regard to a sense of moral duty" [emphasis mine]. This is not my reading of Kant's theory. Rather, he suggests that an act has moral worth if the motive of duty is the determining factor, but this does not preclude actions carried out from the motive of duty and the motive of, say, self-preservation, from having moral worth. Mine is a similar reading to that of HJ Paton in The Categorical Imperative (University of Pennsylvania, 1947, pp. 49), in arguing against Schiller, whose account is broadly in agreement with this Wiki article as it stands at the moment. -- Benwilson528 ( talk) 18:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
A criminal on the grounds of the Golden Rule could dispute with judges or a man could refuse to give to charity, both of which are incompatible under the universality of the categorical imperative.
A man can believe that anarchy is best (free for all) and hence that theft should be universally allowed (ie no one should be allowed to deny, except by force, the right to anything. Yes, Kant addresses this but he's committed petitio principii assuming "property"; if you state it as "anyone can have anything they can forcefully acquire and keep" then there is no logical contradiction, I digress). Similarly a man can believe that charity should not exist and that anyone who can't look after themselves should perish. Neither position is inconsistent with the Categorical Imperative presented here.
Nor do I see what is meant by "A criminal [...] could dispute with judges [...]". Presumably it is being claimed that The Golden Rule requires that there be no punishment? That is not a necessary condition of The Golden Rule which kinda weakens the argument that this is a point of difference. IMO this badly needs revising to make logical sense, or if Kant was equally illogical to specify clearly where Kant supported this view. Pbhj ( talk) 01:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a major statement and is presented as if it were a well-known fact. Unfortunately, I have never come across a reliable source making such a claim.
Given that this article treats a major philosophical concept and thus deserves a fair share of respect, I propose that unverified claims like this be removed until an appropriate, reliable source is found and discussed on this page - and even then, that the statement be made in more broad terms (for instance: "According to ... , the concept of the categorical imperative should be considered a syllogism" ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.223.157.50 ( talk) 03:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I've been looking for a actual quote from Kant on the categorical imperative, and thusly turned to this article. Here I find this:
with a reference to "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.". I looked up the ISBN, and found a preview on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Grounding-Metaphysics-Morals-Supposed-Philanthropic/dp/087220166X. On page v I found the following
The quote in the Wikipedia-article might be from some other page of the book, but I thought I ought to mention it. FSund ( talk) 17:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I am removing the section, "Conscientious Nazi." Killing all Jews can't be a categorical imperative; it could never be universally applied: not everyone can kill all Jews.
It's an interesting thing to think about, but I don't think we keep it the way it's written--maybe if someone provides a better argument from the reference text, we can put it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.48.20 ( talk) 19:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Why choose to express the Golden Rule in archaic English quoted from the Christian Bible? Currently the article cites to Matthew and states: The 'Golden Rule' (in its positive form) says: "Therefore all things whatsoever would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".
That seems like an overly confusing way to express it, and the only reason to select that formulation is to include someone's idea that the Golden Rule should be sourced to Christianity. Why not simply write, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you," and leave it at that? It hardly needs to be sourced in an article about the Categorical Imperative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:C08C:A6F0:21C:B3FF:FEC3:2572 ( talk) 17:08, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
removed section:
Let p be a proposition making a moral assertion. One obtains a formula describing the categorical imperative in terms of formal logic using deontic, modal and doxastic operators
.
The identity reads: "It ought to be p if and only if it is possible that every agent c believes that it ought to be p". --[ 79.211.193.51, original author] of the five edits in question ([ 10:48 to 13:01 to 28 May, 2014]).
I am going to revert the changes that added the section titled "Formalization". It caught my eye due to being (as far as I see) incorrect in several ways; first, there are several 'formulations' given by Kant, as mentioned in the article; second, this doesn't seem to restate any of them. In case support is found for this being a translation of the Imperative into a formal system, I have pasted it above; but there was no citation given, and I could not find reference to it, so I believe it not to be verifiable (against policy WP:V) and it also seems to be original research (against policy WP:NOR). Shelleybutterfly ( talk) 13:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
as this article alludes to with the Eichmann example, the use of categorical imperative as justification for dubious actions comes up against the question, which of the many conflicting relevant imperatives should be obeyed in any given case? E.g. for Eichmann there was "avoid murder" imperative and "do your job as loyal government official" imperative and these were obviously in conflict. Both of these are as categorical as it gets -- i.e. what will happen if everybody starts murdering people? or if all government officials stop obeying their superiors or let's say quit the moment they are told to do something they don't like? -- but when they are in conflict you cannot obey them both. I am pretty sure this is a standard critique of CI as a guide to moral action; surprisingly the current article doesn't seem to reflect it, unless it is worded in some round-about way I am missing. 76.119.30.87 ( talk) 02:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
The "third formulation" that this article lists is neither the third formulation according to Kant, nor is it the third formulation as acknowledged by Kant scholars. It is true that Kant formulates the categorical imperative in a number of different ways, but most scholars list three main formulations:
1. The formula of universality (which Kant puts together with the formula of the law of nature since laws of nature are by definition universal). Kant considers this his "first formulation" (see 4:431 where he references the two previous formulations. See also 4:436-437 where Kant explicitly mentions that there are three principles and explains how they are unified. Note that this occurs before he introduces the formulation of the kingdom of ends at 4:439).
2. The humanity [Menschheit] formula (at 4:429) which establishes that we must treat each person/rational being as an end in themselves. This is correct on the article.
3. The autonomy formulation (at 4:432) is the "idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will". Note this is the only categorical imperative formulation that isn't actually formulated as a command. We know (and again, pretty much all scholars agree here) that this is the third formulation because Kant explicitly says so before introducing it: "this [previous sentence] occurs in the present third form of the principle, namely the idea of a will..."
After these first three forms (which Kant considers to be the three forms) (the first of which contains two formulations), Kant actually formulates the categorical imperative 8 more times (though these can easily be assimilated to the first three forms as Kant acknowledges before each). The last of those 8 is the "formula of the kingdom of ends" (at 4:439). It's also worth noting at this point that what the literature considers the "formula of the kindgdom of ends" is different than the one cited in the article (the cited passage occurs one page earlier at 4:438). The formula of the kingdom of ends reads:
"act according to maxims of a universally legislating member of a merely possible kingdom of ends" (4:439).
Every source I have consulted agrees with this division and Kant is pretty explicit that he wants things to be understood this way. I've checked the Sedgwick and Timmerman commentaries and I know that Korsgaard, Rawls, and probably many others, have papers on the matter. See also the SEP article on Kant's moral philosophy: plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with how to edit wikipedia so I didn't want to ruin the page somehow by trying to fix things. What needs to be done is that:
1. the section on the third formula needs to be renamed so that it is a section on "The formula of the kingdom of ends". This formulation is most certainly considered important, so I wouldn't want to lose that section.
2. The citation in that section should be fixed. As it stands it does not currently cite the formula.
3. A new section should be created that outlines the actual third formulation, i.e. the formula of autonomy, which Kant writes about at 4:431-2.
As a further note, it is standard in the literature to cite according to the Akademie Ausgabe. Most translations nowadays will include references to those page numbers in either the margin or footer and so it is most useful to cite the groundwork in this way.
[PS: I hope I haven't messed up this talk page somehow.]
--a PhD candidate working on Kant's moral philosophy [[[Special:Contributions/2601:547:902:6CD0:4174:1B84:411B:261F|2601:547:902:6CD0:4174:1B84:411B:261F]] ( talk) 19:53, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm no native english speaker, but shouldn't it be "an universal law"?
Unlike relief of thirst and drinking something, acquiring knowledge and learning are the same. So it seems that "learn" should be replaced. Maybe with "study". Study is not the only way to acquire knowledge - my knowledge of road accidents was not acquired through study - but the question here is of deliberate acquisition, so "study" might be right. However, one can also acquire knowledge deliberately by placing oneself in a position where knowledge is likely to be acquired through experience - for example, to acquire knowledge of human nature by working in a bar. So "study" doesn't seem entirely right. Any other suggestions? Wikiain ( talk) 02:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Supporters of Kant always find this part troubling and try to help him out of the problem. The section in this article about it ends with two sentences (with no sources provided for either) that read: "Neither of them explain why such duress would cause a truthful answer to be more consistent with the categorical imperative than refusing to answer. Subsequent commentators on the challenge often point out that there is likely no such reason." The section seems to end with the implication that Kant and Constant were just wrong and there can never be a reason why silence would be impermissible. But a scenario where the murderer first says, "If I ask you a question do you promise to give me an answer?" and gets a "yes" reply before revealing the murderous question would create a situation where the obligation to keep one's promises requires that you answer and the obligation to tell the truth requires that you provide the information requested. It does not take any convoluted machinations to create a situation where silence is forbidden.
Now I am sure some Kant apologist will want to reply to my comment with "original research!" to prevent it's inclusion, but I am not proposing that anything be added to the section, so rest easy. At the very least the fact that, as anyone can quickly see, it is not hard to find a reason why answering would be required explains the (unsourced) claim that neither says how it could happen (why would they explain that which they rightly take to be obvious?) so that sentence seems to be one that should be removed, as it implies the omission was important when there is no evidence that it was important. Also, the final sentence (also unsourced) should be removed as it is not sourced and it only reveals, even if it is true, the lack of imagination of some Kant apologists.
I propose removing both sentences. I would also propose removing the obviously speculative ending to the sentence before that (beginning with "perhaps because"). 134.41.94.151 ( talk) 02:06, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
This passage in "Nature of the concept":
seems uninterpretable. The grammar does not make sense. Zaslav ( talk) 00:55, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
This is a very complicated sentence of ~58 words without punctuation that I do not understand:
I suggest breaking it up into several sentences and possibly adding commas to clarify it.
Question about the word "individuals": should it be one of these?
Ttulinsky (
talk)
20:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
The free will is the source of all rational action. But to treat it as a subjective end is to deny the possibility of freedom in general. Because the autonomous will is the one and only source of moral action, it would contradict the first formulation to claim that a person is merely a means to some other end, rather than always an end in themselves.
How can individuality be compatible with that formulation? If every individual is always and end in themselves, then there isn't individuality. There is a single amalgam "hive mind." This reminds me of the problem with the so-called Golden Rule. Firstly, one would have to be omniscient (no individuality) in order to know how to treat others as well as one can. Secondly, everyone would ultimately have to be the same, no only due to the aforementioned requirement of omniscience but also due to the practical impossibility of being capable of being all things to all people, so long as significant individual differences exist. I am not a philosopher; I have only the slightest background in this. However, this is what occurred to me when I read the quoted text. I also find it humorous that so-called free will (which the article said Kant states can't be experienced/perceived/understood and therefore is arguably less real than a fantasy) is the source of all rational action. Something that doesn't exist (the only true definition of something that can't be perceived at all) being the basis for all action is absurd. 107.77.195.33 ( talk) 04:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
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I rewrote this article completely and replaced the existing version. The old version and its talk are archived at Categorical imperative/temp. -- malathion talk 07:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I like your article a lot, however I feel that the part about abortion and animal rights expresses your personal point of view. I agree with this statement: "Only rational and autonomous beings are held to have intrinsic worth under this account, and objects or creatures that are not autonomous are held to have no moral worth at all" From this you conclude that animals and fetus have no intrinsic moral value. But this conclusion may only be drawn, if you knew for sure that animals and fetus are non-rational beings. How do you know? I'm sorry, but you really don't know. For a Kantian philosopher a human being acquires a moral status, once it becomes a rational being having a free will. But, when does this happen? Nobody really knows for sure. In somewhat religious terms, one may ask: When does the soul enter the human body? Kilian Klaiber
I would have to agree about the abortion section. I agree that Kant would probably have followed the line of reasoning you describe, but I don't think that including that section is warranted without citing direct textual support from a work by or about Kant, and I don't personally know of any work arguing that Kant would have held such a position. -BLC
I'm considering making the following changes to this article, and would like to hear your thoughts:
First, the Formula of Humanity as an End is erroneously described here as the second formulation, when it is in fact the third. This certainly ought to be corrected.
On that note, it only seems appropriate to add the second, fourth, and fifth formulations. I possess the James W. Ellington translation, which I notice is already cited in this article, and so will happily do this.
I also notice that the section about the golden rule is completely uncited, and I'm also uncertain about its relevance to the article. Though it would be great to include some responses to the CI in this article, like Philippa Foot's, I'm not sure about that one. If someone doesn't come up with citations, I may remove it.
Finally, I don't think the section on Eichmann is relevant enough to include, and I'm also inclined to remove it.
Opinions?
I would say personally that the categorical imperative inherently is multiple universes and dimensions. When you think of people you think of emotions which are impossible to measure like a drug such as nostalgia which is based on the past and not the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.210.82.57 ( talk) 01:59, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
-A B.A. in philosophy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bardcollegerulez ( talk • contribs) 23:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I know this discussion is rather passe, but I was just about to comment that the Eichmann business seems too peripheral to be relevant here. It should be edited or removed. Daedalus 96 ( talk) 03:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, this word doesn't seem to appear in any dictionary, and yet it gets 11,000 Google hits [1], including academic publications. It also appears several times on Plato [2].
I'm not sure which version is better; I just wanted to point this out. -- causa sui talk 19:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
"Universalisability" is the concept developed by R.M. Hare, and shouldn't be confused with Kant's notion of universality (they're closely related, but not the same). It is most certainly a word, though (perhaps the U.S. "z" was the problem? I've often seen it spelt that way, though), and has been in use since the early/mid twentieth century. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 10:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Added a NPOV template since the earlier section about objections [3] has been deleted and the supposed link about criticism do not show any. Ultramarine 16:11, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Could we please have some Diffs and explanation for the NPOV banner? Banno 21:43, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the problem is with the Deontological ethics article, rather than this one. However, I feel that some of the criticisms which were cut out should be put back in SOMEWHERE, rather than simply deleted from one article and NOT inserted into the other, where it is claimed they should go. I am sure the criticisms have many problems, as did the rest of the article (which now looks good BTW). I have put all of them, in toto, into Deontological Ethics. I suppose I would appreciate a better reason for deleting them rather than 'they should be somewhere else'. WhiteC 18:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
This is pretty good, I'd say. I've made one or two minor changes,; the only point at which I have more serious reservations concerns the comments on property and lying in perfect duty, but I'll think about that, and come back to it later. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 10:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
For Mel:
I don't understand what this means. It seems to be self-contradictory. -- causa sui talk 23:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
The current discussion seems to be discussing "perfect duty" as being due to logical contradictions ("logical annihilation"), which is one of the major interpretations, but not the only one. Christine Korsgaard (one of the better-known latter-day Kantians) argues fairly strongly for a "Practical Contradition" rather than "Logical Contradiction" interpretation, and there is a third interpretation (another "[x] Contradiction") that slips my mind at the moment. I will have to refresh my memory before diving into the article though, unless someone here is more knowledgeable... -- Delirium 04:25, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
I added a "stub" Criticism section in order to get the ball rolling. It needs to be polished up by those with more knowledge of Kant and more experience writing WP articles.
-- jrcagle 22:12, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
(1) (humorous aside) The original objections section [6] is already loose in the wild: [7].
(2) I've already indicated that I think that the CI can be subject to traditional ethical criticism, such as that of Constant.
(3) I agree that much of the "Objections" section has the appearance of original research. Perhaps all that is needed is clearer citations, or else a more careful re-writing. However, the skeleton of headings in the "Objections" section is (a) fair, (b) historically accurate in that real people did raise those objections specifically at Kant, and (c) helpful to someone trying to learn about Kant.
(4) Because Kantian ethics is a subset of Deontological Ethics, it is improper (IMO!) to have a section entitled "criticisms of Kant" in the Deontological Ethics article. That is, unless you want to begin enumerating *all* deontological theories and their criticisms there. :-)
It's just an organizational complaint, I think -- unless you have a Reason for sticking criticisms of Kant over in deontology. Then it's POV. Heh.
(5) I'm not sure if the point makes sense to me. I understand "normative ethics" (of which Kant is considered a subset: (quick Google) [8], [9]) to be very different from "applied ethics", so I got lost in the connect. Sorry to be obtuse.
-- jrcagle 01:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't like the criticism section. It mainly states the opinion that the concept of freedom and a deterministic world are incompatible. This is not really directly related to the categorical imperative. This is a general philosophical problem, which must be adressed in any ethical system. Kant apparently believed that a deterministic phenomenal world does not rule out a non-deterministice (free) noumenal world. Therefore, he believed freedom is possible, however he failed to prove that man is free. The criticism section seems to refute this idea. But what is the link to the categorical imperative? The categorical imperative is not valid because man is not free? Well, in this case any ethical system would be a hoax. This criticism may be moved to the Kant article. Maybe someone might try to argue that the term freedom is linked to the categorical imperative in the autonomy formulation. The term autonomous means self legislating. It is a particular kind of freedom and not freedom per se. There is an article about free will, that's where this topic should be discussed. Kikl 09:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
My point is, if freedom collapses any ethical theory not just Kant's ethical theory collapses. Therefore it is not immediately related to the categorical imperative. It is related to any ethical theory. I know that free will is central to Kant's philosophy. But the criticism section doesn't deal at all with the categoricalimperative, its justification or its implications. It deals with Kant's arguments for believing that a free will may exist in a deterministic phenomenal world. I think the criticism section as it is fits better to an article dealing with free will per se. ( Kikl 23:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC))
Good point, as far as I know Kant seems to suggest that not acting according to the categorical imperative means not acting autonomously. I've come across the same argument and I remember that Kant introduced different concepts of freedom, negative freedom (=freedom of choice) and positive freedom (=autonomy). Many more points could be criticized. The neglect of consequences of actions. The formalistic approach to ethics. Kant neglected the meaning of feelings and valued only rational motives. Kant's focus on the good will, the motive of the action. The examples discussed by Kant. Kant's claim that there is only a single categorical imperative whereas the different formulations seem to introduce new concepts (end in itself, kingdom of ends, autonomy, natural law, perfect duties/imperfect duties) ... ( Kikl 23:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)).
Quote: "The article already mentions that Kant regards consequences as irrelevant and the reader can decide for his or her self whether that is a problem; there is no need to introduce it as a criticism." I don't buy this argument. First of all, the criticism section should only contain criticism of what Kant actually believed. Therefore, it is not surprising that the reader should come across this proposition before it is criticised. Secondly, anybody can judge for himself, whether he follows Kant in his arguments. In this case, we may get rid of the criticism section altogether. The relationship among the different formulations is a topic of discussion. In my mind the "end in itself" formulation departs from the concept that the only content of the categorical imperative is the form of the law (universalizability). See: " http://ethics.sandiego.edu/video/USD/Kant2003/Allison/index.html( Kikl 10:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC))
I'm surprised to hear that neglecting the consequences hasn't been criticised. Here's another link: http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/rhl/maria.html, one more link, I highly recommend: http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/macintyre_1994.pdf
Okay, I did some research and found what I think is a criticism of whether the Categorical Imperative exists. I quote from Onora O'Neill's article/chapter 14 "Kantian Ethics", which is contained in Blackwell's Companions to Philosophy: A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer. This particular quote is from p180:
This seems to me to be a metaphysical objection based on an incompatibilist view of free-will -v- determinism. Kant apparently did not give a compatibilist response to this objection--I'll continue the quote:
A long quote--sorry. I'll wait for any advice on how much of this I should quote directly from O'Neill and how much I should paraphrase--(there is a third paragraph in which she claims that Kant later changed the form of his rebuttal in "The End of All Things"). Or any basic objections to the argument, or my interpretation of it. WhiteC 07:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion Mrs. O'Neil's criticism deals with Kant's conception of the possibility of freedom. If man were not free, he would have no moral obligations. Consequently, the categorical imperative would not apply. But, freedom is far more fundamental. It ist not just a necessary conception for Kant's moral philosophy. It is central for moral philosophy per se, since it is useless to conceive of moral vs. immoral actions or maxims if the moral agent (actor) may not obey the moral rules due to his lack of freedom.
Comment: I think Kant's argument for the imperfect duties is less consequentialist than the summary suggests. As I read him, his point is that although being a rational agent doesn't commit one to any particular goals, one can't be a rational agent without having some goals or other. Since having a goal rationally commits one to aiming at the means to one's goal, being a rational agent rationally commits one to aiming at all-purpose means, i.e. means that are generally useful regardless of what particular goals one may have. (This isn't a consequentialist argument because it makes no appeal to to the value of the goals; it's a purely conceptual point.) Hence any rational agent is committed a) to desiring to be generally helpful/useful to herself, and b) to want other people to be generally helpful/useful to her; universalised, these yield duties of self-improvement and of charity. -- BerserkRL
Some anon just gave the article a big rewrite. I'm not sure if the new version is better. Seems like some material is worth incorporating though. -- causa sui talk 14:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
On a second reading, some of this looks quite good, barring some writing style problems. -- causa sui talk 15:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Some more thoughts:
This just seems dead wrong. I don't think Kant was deriving the first formulation from "common sense morality" but he simply thought our common sense morality was in line with the categorical imperative, or our moral intuitions were moving in that direction already. I think this section is very unclear.
This is describing the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty, but I am not sure how this explains the distinction any better than the previous version. I think it would be more confusing to the unititiated reader.
This doesn't explain how the mean-as-end formulation is derived from the first formulation, a vital step in my mind.
Again, this will make no sense to the uninitiated reader.
-- causa sui talk 15:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The titles say it all. Ultramarine 16:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
If you want to know their feelings, you might want to ask them. I don't agree with your interpretation. In any case, those criticisms apply to Kant's ethics broadly, which is not the subject of this article. They belong somewhere on Wikipedia, but not in this article. -- causa sui talk 17:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I am aware that I do not own this article, and my argument is not that it can't be added because it isn't already there. I'll try one last idea for resolving this: Given that the criticisms are attacks on deontological ethics and not the categorical imperative itself, why do you think this article is a better place for those criticisms than Deontological ethics? -- causa sui talk 19:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this article would benefit from a section relating the different forms Kant related that the CI test can formally take: the contradiction in coneption test (CC) and the contradiction in the will test (CW). I think these tests relate directly to the FUL (hence the emphasis on contradiction, which is directly opposed to unviersalizability), but am not that familiar with their chracterizations, so am refraining from writing the section myself until I can do some further research. Shaggorama 09:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Here are my reasons. The reader will actually recognize that Delaney has reintroduced the section about abortion and animal rights although several user's have hinted at the fact that his opinion is speculative and there is no textual support for his opinion. Nevertheless Delaney = Malathion reintroduced this section without giving textual support. It seems appropriate to delete this.
I rewrote this article completely and replaced the existing version. The old version and its talk are archived at Categorical imperative/temp. --malathion talk 07:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I like your article a lot, however I feel that the part about abortion and animal rights expresses your personal point of view. I agree with this statement: "Only rational and autonomous beings are held to have intrinsic worth under this account, and objects or creatures that are not autonomous are held to have no moral worth at all" From this you conclude that animals and fetus have no intrinsic moral value. But this conclusion may only be drawn, if you knew for sure that animals and fetus are non-rational beings. How do you know? I'm sorry, but you really don't know. For a Kantian philosopher a human being acquires a moral status, once it becomes a rational being having a free will. But, when does this happen? Nobody really knows for sure. In somewhat religious terms, one may ask: When does the soul enter the human body? Kilian Klaiber
This is a problem with writing style. When I wrote the original article, I was saying "according to Kant" almost every third sentence and it was getting tedious. Therefore, I wrote at the top of the article that "[The argument] is outlined here according to the arguments therein." and removed a bunch of the qualifiers. If you can think of a better way to clarify this, I would appreciate it. --malathion talk 04:39, 13 August 2005 (UTC) I would have to agree about the abortion section. I agree that Kant would probably have followed the line of reasoning you describe, but I don't think that including that section is warranted without citing direct textual support from a work by or about Kant, and I don't personally know of any work arguing that Kant would have held such a position. -BLC
Kikl 17:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Well I am starting to doubt your good will. You have been criticized many times for introducing your personel point of view and weasel words to the article. Nevertheless you continue doing that. Your recent changes start with the proposition: "The interpretation of the categorical imperative is, in most cases, descriptive and uncontroversial" How can you say something like that? "in most case"... What is a descriptive interpretation? Uncontroversial, that is simply not true. How can you say the interpretation of the categorical imperative is uncontroversial and then talk about all the controversies?
If you remember our recent discussion, I said that there was controversy about Kant's claim that there is only a single categorical imperative. You're response was I quote "I think, and I doubt you will find any sources that make this kind of attack" How can you say that? Please look at what you've written: "That is, the murderer who asks Jim where his victim is does not know that Jim knows he is a murderer, so this maxim could be conceived as a universal law of nature with no problem at all. However, Korsgaard goes on to argue that the lie is nevertheless morally impermissible, because it contradicts perfect duty interpreted through the second formulation." The different formulations apparently lead to different consequences, at least according to Mrs. Korsgaard.
The abortion section is POV, pleas read the first paragraph of this article. If this is Mrs. Korsgaard interpretation of the categorical imperative, then this should be mentioned explicitely and all references to Kant should be deleted. I do remember that Kant said something about treating animals, but I'm not so sure what it was. I'll find out.In my opinion, the universal oath-breaking and Eudomonia sections are really bad. Oath breaking is an action and not a maxim. The categorical imperative is about unversalizing maxims and not actions. Therefore, the whole starting point of the argument is false. Then Mr. Ross seems to suggests theat the consequences of universal oath breaking would lead to a world just as effective and reliable as a world where everyone kept their promises. That's a consequentialist argument isn't it. I don't know Mr. Ross, but his criticism, at least what I can tell, is not worth quoting. The same must be said about Mrs. Rand's argument: "The deduction that the entire human race has a duty to die is entirely consistent with the Categorical Imperative provided that the deducer agrees that he himself, or she herself, has a duty to die too." That is a circular argument which presupposes what it is trying to prove. The presupposition is "provided that the deducer agrees that he himself has a duty to die". Deducing a duty shold be the result of the application of the categorical imperative and not the presupposition. This is just nonsense.
Therefore, I think that the abortion section should be completely changed. It should be clear that Kant didn't (as far as I know) put forward an opinion with regard to abortion, DNA and what have you. If this is Mrs. Korsgaards opinion, I feel it may be included to the article as Mrs. Korsgaards opinion.
Best regards
Kikl 23:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I changed the paragraph. If you would like to quote from the "metaphysics of morals", please get an english translation. I don't want to translate the paragraph, because it's very difficult. Kikl 18:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
A quick comment on my changes, since this section is in dispute: The claim that non-rational objects or agents (is there a non-rational agent?) "have no moral value at all" is plainly false. In fact, the "intrinisic moral value" of rational agents is valid only because it is necessitated by the only thing with intrinsic moral value, in the more traditional sense, reason (all this, of course, following Kant's account, e.g. the derivation of the second formulation of the categorical imperative, and not my own). It is because non-rational objects and agents do not possess intrinsic moral value (or, rather, universally valid moral value) that Kant derives a prohibition against cruelty to animals based on one's duty to oneself. That abortion shares the same fate is possibly a controversial topic, since Kant himself (as far as I know) never made any pronouncements on abortion. However, this argument has been convincingly advanced by Don Marquis. Whether this is all that can be said from a Kantian perspective on abortion is an open question, but probably a subject that would be labled "original research". Ig0774 09:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
@ If0774: Thank you very much for adding reasonable changes to the article and providing sound arguments. Best regards Kikl 09:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
@Delaney "which is why I wish I had a citation for this" That's a good point. Unfortunately, you don't find it necessary to add citations to your remarks on the page. I wish you would start doing that instead of speculating on Kant's stand on abortion. Best regards Kikl 14:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
You introduced the recent adddition. Therefore, you are responsible. Therefore, you should provide evidence, in particular citation. If no evidence is provided, then the unsubstantiated paragraphs should be deleted. Best regards, Kikl 19:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not responsible for providing citations for the paragraphs you introduced. You are responsible and don't blame other people. If you can't find any citations, then please delete these unsupported paragraphs. Best Regards Kikl 21:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
This text "Several philosophers have criticized these normative interpretations as incompatible with a realistic moral philosophy." was removed, because the 'several philosophers' have not been identified, and this is not NPOV. I also feel that the intro to the previous section shows Kant's attitude to normative criticisms quite well. WhiteC 14:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
At present, the "Eudaimonia assumed" section seems unclear. I also think it's irrelevant. Some anonymous editor dropped it in on 2 Jan 2005 and it's been unimproved since. Is there some reason it's been kept? I can think of one, but I'd rather believe it's an oversight. — vivacissamamente 21:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
This section contains what seems (to a layman like me) an unfair dismissal of Beck's argument: "Of course [Back's] imperative is actually hypothetical, but the condition is merely omitted. One could say that you should always inscribe your name inside a new book, if you want it to be returned." One *could* say that, but that's not what Beck said. People *could* tack their own hypotheticals on to any proposed categorical. this feeds into the dicussion of the Rand argument as well. In short, every categorial imperative includes some presumption of "the good", which could be rendered as a hypothetical. Example: "You should never lie, *if* you don't want to destroy the meaning of language." 63.166.224.67 16:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Sucide was mentioned in the article with Kant's application of the C.I. to it. Kant also applied the C.I. to three other moral issues (promises, charity, and laziness) in Grounding and thus I added them to the article, albeit while not realizing I didn't auto sign-in on this PC. Good book for $5, and it came with the essay On a Supposed Right to Lie... Sabar 21:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Wow, this page has improved considerably, since Mr. Delaney has stopped editing it. Good Work! Kikl 14:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
In interpreting the CI, there has been an almost word for word duplication of information between Deception and Intent to break promise. Could we combine these two points since they really do speak of the same thing?— Red Baron 15:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
That is a glaring problem with this page. Someone should definitely take care of this when he can find the time to do so. PeterMottola 13:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Just because our grammatical laws allow a sentence to be structured in some way, doesn't mean we ever should structure it so. Would it surprise us if Kant wrote so himself? Should we not say "I must drink something, if I wish to satisfy my thirst"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.72.122 ( talk) 14:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Why aren't the fourth and fifth Formulations of the Categorical Imperative on this page? They may not be considered as important as the first three, but I'd still like to know what they are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaronfledge17 ( talk • contribs) 16:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
No problem. They are the Formula of the Law of Nature (Grounding, p. 30, Ak. 421) and the Formula of Autonomy (p. 44, Ak. 440). And they are actualy the second and fifth in order, by the way. They go like this:
"Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature."
And
"Always choose in such a way that in the same volition the maxims of choice are at the same time present as universal law."
I'll withhold my interpretation of these, however.
192.246.234.245 ( talk) 02:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Both the examples (stealing and lying) appear daft, on my first reading. First, all the stealing in the world can not eliminate property. If you take every man-made thing I have I can just go and grab a flower from the park or a pet from forest and call it my property. The amount of matter in this world is too large to be entirely appropriated. Second, if everybody stole, the property would merely play musical chairs among the thieves, not disappear. Third, one can not prove that there is no property left. Maybe you did not look hard enough? Regarding lying, the article says "...there must be language, but the universalization of lying would destroy the meaning of language." Lying admits degrees in severity and frequency. Most of us (i.e., those of us who are aware that lying exists) have the faculty to deal with this; to infer the truth from what has been said, rather than admitting it on a superficial level. A more mundane disproof is that everybody lies but language has not ceased to exist. As I said, it is a matter of severity and frequency.-- Adoniscik ( talk) 20:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I second the previous post's complaint regarding the example of stealing. Furthermore, "it is permissible to steal" is not a maxim. A maxim must take the form of "I, the agent, will A in C in order to achieve E" where ‘A’ is some type of act, ‘C’ is some type of circumstance, and ‘E’ is some type of end that is achieved by A in C.
However, Kant uses the example of lying to demonstrate a perfect duty in the Groundwork. Why should we not use it in the article? After all, lying is premised on the notion that the listener will believe the lie to be the truth. If everyone were to lie, no listener would believe the statements made by others to be true, and the notion that lying is premised upon would cease to exist. That is where the contradiction in conception lies. It has nothing to do with destroying the meaning of language.
Lyndonentwistle ( talk) 18:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
What does Kant mean by this, in phrases such as "Now he asks the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature."? The laws of nature, in the sense of the term I am familiar with, are not a matter of choice. Perhaps if he had said "be" instead of "become"...-- Adoniscik ( talk) 21:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
In the intro the article compares Kantian morality/deontology to utilitarianism. This seems implausible historically. I mean Kant was older than Jeremy Bentham. His works on morality precededs Bentham's and certainly Mill's. What do you guys think about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.195.11 ( talk) 05:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
The 3rd edition, translated by James W. Ellington, published 1993 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc is actually named "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals." All specific references given by this article refer specifically to the edition I just named and page numbers referenced also refer specifically to this 3rd edition by Ellington (I checked each and every one of them, footnote & page). Therefore, I changed the names of the work throughout this article to "Grounding for..."
So that I can be responded to, my name is Dan. 04:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
At the end of the section "Good will, duty, and the categorical imperative", the article states that "an act can have moral content if, and only if, it is carried out solely with regard to a sense of moral duty" [emphasis mine]. This is not my reading of Kant's theory. Rather, he suggests that an act has moral worth if the motive of duty is the determining factor, but this does not preclude actions carried out from the motive of duty and the motive of, say, self-preservation, from having moral worth. Mine is a similar reading to that of HJ Paton in The Categorical Imperative (University of Pennsylvania, 1947, pp. 49), in arguing against Schiller, whose account is broadly in agreement with this Wiki article as it stands at the moment. -- Benwilson528 ( talk) 18:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
A criminal on the grounds of the Golden Rule could dispute with judges or a man could refuse to give to charity, both of which are incompatible under the universality of the categorical imperative.
A man can believe that anarchy is best (free for all) and hence that theft should be universally allowed (ie no one should be allowed to deny, except by force, the right to anything. Yes, Kant addresses this but he's committed petitio principii assuming "property"; if you state it as "anyone can have anything they can forcefully acquire and keep" then there is no logical contradiction, I digress). Similarly a man can believe that charity should not exist and that anyone who can't look after themselves should perish. Neither position is inconsistent with the Categorical Imperative presented here.
Nor do I see what is meant by "A criminal [...] could dispute with judges [...]". Presumably it is being claimed that The Golden Rule requires that there be no punishment? That is not a necessary condition of The Golden Rule which kinda weakens the argument that this is a point of difference. IMO this badly needs revising to make logical sense, or if Kant was equally illogical to specify clearly where Kant supported this view. Pbhj ( talk) 01:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a major statement and is presented as if it were a well-known fact. Unfortunately, I have never come across a reliable source making such a claim.
Given that this article treats a major philosophical concept and thus deserves a fair share of respect, I propose that unverified claims like this be removed until an appropriate, reliable source is found and discussed on this page - and even then, that the statement be made in more broad terms (for instance: "According to ... , the concept of the categorical imperative should be considered a syllogism" ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.223.157.50 ( talk) 03:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I've been looking for a actual quote from Kant on the categorical imperative, and thusly turned to this article. Here I find this:
with a reference to "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.". I looked up the ISBN, and found a preview on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Grounding-Metaphysics-Morals-Supposed-Philanthropic/dp/087220166X. On page v I found the following
The quote in the Wikipedia-article might be from some other page of the book, but I thought I ought to mention it. FSund ( talk) 17:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I am removing the section, "Conscientious Nazi." Killing all Jews can't be a categorical imperative; it could never be universally applied: not everyone can kill all Jews.
It's an interesting thing to think about, but I don't think we keep it the way it's written--maybe if someone provides a better argument from the reference text, we can put it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.48.20 ( talk) 19:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Why choose to express the Golden Rule in archaic English quoted from the Christian Bible? Currently the article cites to Matthew and states: The 'Golden Rule' (in its positive form) says: "Therefore all things whatsoever would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".
That seems like an overly confusing way to express it, and the only reason to select that formulation is to include someone's idea that the Golden Rule should be sourced to Christianity. Why not simply write, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you," and leave it at that? It hardly needs to be sourced in an article about the Categorical Imperative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:C08C:A6F0:21C:B3FF:FEC3:2572 ( talk) 17:08, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
removed section:
Let p be a proposition making a moral assertion. One obtains a formula describing the categorical imperative in terms of formal logic using deontic, modal and doxastic operators
.
The identity reads: "It ought to be p if and only if it is possible that every agent c believes that it ought to be p". --[ 79.211.193.51, original author] of the five edits in question ([ 10:48 to 13:01 to 28 May, 2014]).
I am going to revert the changes that added the section titled "Formalization". It caught my eye due to being (as far as I see) incorrect in several ways; first, there are several 'formulations' given by Kant, as mentioned in the article; second, this doesn't seem to restate any of them. In case support is found for this being a translation of the Imperative into a formal system, I have pasted it above; but there was no citation given, and I could not find reference to it, so I believe it not to be verifiable (against policy WP:V) and it also seems to be original research (against policy WP:NOR). Shelleybutterfly ( talk) 13:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
as this article alludes to with the Eichmann example, the use of categorical imperative as justification for dubious actions comes up against the question, which of the many conflicting relevant imperatives should be obeyed in any given case? E.g. for Eichmann there was "avoid murder" imperative and "do your job as loyal government official" imperative and these were obviously in conflict. Both of these are as categorical as it gets -- i.e. what will happen if everybody starts murdering people? or if all government officials stop obeying their superiors or let's say quit the moment they are told to do something they don't like? -- but when they are in conflict you cannot obey them both. I am pretty sure this is a standard critique of CI as a guide to moral action; surprisingly the current article doesn't seem to reflect it, unless it is worded in some round-about way I am missing. 76.119.30.87 ( talk) 02:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
The "third formulation" that this article lists is neither the third formulation according to Kant, nor is it the third formulation as acknowledged by Kant scholars. It is true that Kant formulates the categorical imperative in a number of different ways, but most scholars list three main formulations:
1. The formula of universality (which Kant puts together with the formula of the law of nature since laws of nature are by definition universal). Kant considers this his "first formulation" (see 4:431 where he references the two previous formulations. See also 4:436-437 where Kant explicitly mentions that there are three principles and explains how they are unified. Note that this occurs before he introduces the formulation of the kingdom of ends at 4:439).
2. The humanity [Menschheit] formula (at 4:429) which establishes that we must treat each person/rational being as an end in themselves. This is correct on the article.
3. The autonomy formulation (at 4:432) is the "idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will". Note this is the only categorical imperative formulation that isn't actually formulated as a command. We know (and again, pretty much all scholars agree here) that this is the third formulation because Kant explicitly says so before introducing it: "this [previous sentence] occurs in the present third form of the principle, namely the idea of a will..."
After these first three forms (which Kant considers to be the three forms) (the first of which contains two formulations), Kant actually formulates the categorical imperative 8 more times (though these can easily be assimilated to the first three forms as Kant acknowledges before each). The last of those 8 is the "formula of the kingdom of ends" (at 4:439). It's also worth noting at this point that what the literature considers the "formula of the kindgdom of ends" is different than the one cited in the article (the cited passage occurs one page earlier at 4:438). The formula of the kingdom of ends reads:
"act according to maxims of a universally legislating member of a merely possible kingdom of ends" (4:439).
Every source I have consulted agrees with this division and Kant is pretty explicit that he wants things to be understood this way. I've checked the Sedgwick and Timmerman commentaries and I know that Korsgaard, Rawls, and probably many others, have papers on the matter. See also the SEP article on Kant's moral philosophy: plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with how to edit wikipedia so I didn't want to ruin the page somehow by trying to fix things. What needs to be done is that:
1. the section on the third formula needs to be renamed so that it is a section on "The formula of the kingdom of ends". This formulation is most certainly considered important, so I wouldn't want to lose that section.
2. The citation in that section should be fixed. As it stands it does not currently cite the formula.
3. A new section should be created that outlines the actual third formulation, i.e. the formula of autonomy, which Kant writes about at 4:431-2.
As a further note, it is standard in the literature to cite according to the Akademie Ausgabe. Most translations nowadays will include references to those page numbers in either the margin or footer and so it is most useful to cite the groundwork in this way.
[PS: I hope I haven't messed up this talk page somehow.]
--a PhD candidate working on Kant's moral philosophy [[[Special:Contributions/2601:547:902:6CD0:4174:1B84:411B:261F|2601:547:902:6CD0:4174:1B84:411B:261F]] ( talk) 19:53, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm no native english speaker, but shouldn't it be "an universal law"?
Unlike relief of thirst and drinking something, acquiring knowledge and learning are the same. So it seems that "learn" should be replaced. Maybe with "study". Study is not the only way to acquire knowledge - my knowledge of road accidents was not acquired through study - but the question here is of deliberate acquisition, so "study" might be right. However, one can also acquire knowledge deliberately by placing oneself in a position where knowledge is likely to be acquired through experience - for example, to acquire knowledge of human nature by working in a bar. So "study" doesn't seem entirely right. Any other suggestions? Wikiain ( talk) 02:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Supporters of Kant always find this part troubling and try to help him out of the problem. The section in this article about it ends with two sentences (with no sources provided for either) that read: "Neither of them explain why such duress would cause a truthful answer to be more consistent with the categorical imperative than refusing to answer. Subsequent commentators on the challenge often point out that there is likely no such reason." The section seems to end with the implication that Kant and Constant were just wrong and there can never be a reason why silence would be impermissible. But a scenario where the murderer first says, "If I ask you a question do you promise to give me an answer?" and gets a "yes" reply before revealing the murderous question would create a situation where the obligation to keep one's promises requires that you answer and the obligation to tell the truth requires that you provide the information requested. It does not take any convoluted machinations to create a situation where silence is forbidden.
Now I am sure some Kant apologist will want to reply to my comment with "original research!" to prevent it's inclusion, but I am not proposing that anything be added to the section, so rest easy. At the very least the fact that, as anyone can quickly see, it is not hard to find a reason why answering would be required explains the (unsourced) claim that neither says how it could happen (why would they explain that which they rightly take to be obvious?) so that sentence seems to be one that should be removed, as it implies the omission was important when there is no evidence that it was important. Also, the final sentence (also unsourced) should be removed as it is not sourced and it only reveals, even if it is true, the lack of imagination of some Kant apologists.
I propose removing both sentences. I would also propose removing the obviously speculative ending to the sentence before that (beginning with "perhaps because"). 134.41.94.151 ( talk) 02:06, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
This passage in "Nature of the concept":
seems uninterpretable. The grammar does not make sense. Zaslav ( talk) 00:55, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
This is a very complicated sentence of ~58 words without punctuation that I do not understand:
I suggest breaking it up into several sentences and possibly adding commas to clarify it.
Question about the word "individuals": should it be one of these?
Ttulinsky (
talk)
20:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
The free will is the source of all rational action. But to treat it as a subjective end is to deny the possibility of freedom in general. Because the autonomous will is the one and only source of moral action, it would contradict the first formulation to claim that a person is merely a means to some other end, rather than always an end in themselves.
How can individuality be compatible with that formulation? If every individual is always and end in themselves, then there isn't individuality. There is a single amalgam "hive mind." This reminds me of the problem with the so-called Golden Rule. Firstly, one would have to be omniscient (no individuality) in order to know how to treat others as well as one can. Secondly, everyone would ultimately have to be the same, no only due to the aforementioned requirement of omniscience but also due to the practical impossibility of being capable of being all things to all people, so long as significant individual differences exist. I am not a philosopher; I have only the slightest background in this. However, this is what occurred to me when I read the quoted text. I also find it humorous that so-called free will (which the article said Kant states can't be experienced/perceived/understood and therefore is arguably less real than a fantasy) is the source of all rational action. Something that doesn't exist (the only true definition of something that can't be perceived at all) being the basis for all action is absurd. 107.77.195.33 ( talk) 04:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)