Distinction Between Categorical Imperatives And Hypotheticals
Immanuel Kant famously made a distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.Imagine that someone told you “John is a good serial killer.” Inherent in between twointerpretations of good. Either John is very good at killing people, he is an effective serial killer,or John is a vigilante serial killer who only kills other serial killers. The first of these is ahypothetical good, while the second is a categorical good. A hypothetical is an if-then statement.In this case, we mean if you want some X then you should do Y. If you want to dig a hole youshould use a shovel. Shovels are good for digging holes. If you want a lot of people to die, youshould get John. John is a good serial killer. A categorical good, on the other hand, is
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For example, you are at work and you don't have money onyour pocket and your coworker put the $20 on the corner and when your coworker got distractedyou would take that money and spend it because you are very hungry. Do you think is it okay?whether you admit it or not, it is stealing, what you are actually doing is universalizing thataction. you are basically saying that I am able to take that money then everyone should be able tosteal always. This leads to a contradiction, Kant said that moral actions cannot bring aboutcontradictions. So if everyone can always steal, then you can steal the money and I can steal themoney back from you, then you should steal the money back, so it would never end and no onewould never get the money, so stealing is not universalizable. He said that moral rules apply to everyone but it can sometimes lead to some prettycounterintuitive results. For example you coworker (John) did not show up to work and yourmanager asked you if you see John today and your lied and said yes he was here five minutesago and he went back to get some boxes, and your manager left the store to buy something forthe store and suddenly he saw John outside shopping for himself. I this case you lied for Johnsgood but he will get fired for no call no show-up, so he is in trouble, but if you were telling thetruth John might not get fire and end it up with a write-up. So basically you are responsible forJohns unemployed. So he
For example, you are at work and you don't have money onyour pocket and your coworker put the $20 on the corner and when your coworker got distractedyou would take that money and spend it because you are very hungry. Do you think is it okay?whether you admit it or not, it is stealing, what you are actually doing is universalizing thataction. you are basically saying that I am able to take that money then everyone should be able tosteal always. This leads to a contradiction, Kant said that moral actions cannot bring aboutcontradictions. So if everyone can always steal, then you can steal the money and I can steal themoney back from you, then you should steal the money back, so it would never end and no onewould never get the money, so stealing is not universalizable. He said that moral rules apply to everyone but it can sometimes lead to some prettycounterintuitive results. For example you coworker (John) did not show up to work and yourmanager asked you if you see John today and your lied and said yes he was here five minutesago and he went back to get some boxes, and your manager left the store to buy something forthe store and suddenly he saw John outside shopping for himself. I this case you lied for Johnsgood but he will get fired for no call no show-up, so he is in trouble, but if you were telling thetruth John might not get fire and end it up with a write-up. So basically you are responsible forJohns unemployed. So he