No.2463
Semi-reelated repost of a tant about Kant
The Categorical Imperative is fucking stupid.
I'll take the never lying principle, for instance:
According to K(u)nt, if a murderer comes at your doorstep asking if you know where a certain friend, the one you are hiding from him, is, you should say yes, because otherwise you'd corrupt the categorical imperative.
The logic, if it can be called that, is that by lying about it you are using the killer as means instead of an end, something you should never do to another human being, because if everybody did it then society couldn't function because 1 - by covering/misrepresenting information you take away people's autonomy to take a conscious decision 2 - if everybody lied then lying wouldn't really anything; IE, lying is irrational (gross oversimplification, yes, but I'm not lying about it).
So let's destroy Immanuel "bad portraits" Kant with facts and logic, shall we?
- The killer doesn't follow the categorical imperative. If anyone could kill anyone willy-nilly than society kan't really function, can it? You're not really seeing people as ends to themselves when you kill them for money, are you? Then how can defend the interests of people that go against the Categorical Imperative? If everybody gave autonomy to people that don't respect the CI, than the CI wouldn't mean a whole lot, now would it?
- Once your friend is dead, he can't make informed decisions of any kind. You know, cause his brains are all over your wall.
- In defense of the indefensible, Kant says that maybe your friend could slip out the back after all, even heroes know when to be scared, and if the killer caught him outside after not looking inside your house it would be your fault. Let's consider the combinations:
A: you lie B: you tell the truth
a: your friend runs b:your friend stays
1: your friend is killed 2: your friend survives
Kant seems to assume the killer would not enter your house anyway if you said he wasn't there; that's fucking stupid and I won't take such childish assumptions into account.
In Aa1,Ab1,Bb1,Ba1, your friend dies; 50% of all scenarios.
According to Kant, you are completely at fault in cases Aa1, Ab1. The odds of your friend dying by not lying is still 50%, but fuck your friend, the important thing is that your hands are clean!
Oh, and the best for last:
consequences, and the series of coincidences he imagines is even more fantastic:
"After you have honestly answered the murderer's question as to whether his intended victim is at home, it
may be that he has slipped out so that he does not come in the way of the murderer, and thus that the murder may not be committed. But if you had lied and said he was not at home when he had really gone out without your
knowing it, and if the murderer had then met him as he went away and murdered him, you might justly be accused as the cause of his death. '''For if you had told the truth as far as you knew it, perhaps the murderer might have been apprehended by the neighbors while he searched the house and thus the deed might have been
prevented.''' (On A Supposed Right to Lie From Altruistic Motives, Immanuel Kant)
AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT THE ONE DOING ANYTHING, IT'S FINE!