But there is at least conceptual room for the idea of a natural or inclination-based end that we must will. The distinction between ends that we might or might not will and those, if any, we necessarily will as the kinds of natural beings we are, is the basis for his distinction between two kinds of hypothetical imperatives. If the end is one that we might or might not will — that is, it is a merely possible end — the imperative is problematic.

Almost all non-moral, rational imperatives are problematic, since there are virtually no ends that we necessarily will as human beings. As it turns out, the only non-moral end that we will, as a matter of natural necessity, is our own happiness. Any imperative that applied to us because we will our own happiness would thus be an assertoric imperative.

Rationality, Kant thinks, can issue no imperative if the end is indeterminate, and happiness is an indeterminate end. Since Kant presents moral and prudential rational requirements as first and foremost demands on our wills rather than on external acts, moral and prudential evaluation is first and foremost an evaluation of the will our actions express. Likewise, while actions, feelings or desires may be the focus of other moral views, for Kant practical irrationality, both moral and prudential, focuses mainly on our willing.

That is, do such imperatives tell us to take the necessary means to our ends or give up our ends wide scope or do they simply tell us that, if we have an end, then take the necessary means to it. Hence, morality and other rational requirements are, for the most part, demands that apply to the maxims that we act on. Since this is a principle stating only what some agent wills, it is subjective. A principle that governs any rational will is an objective principle of volition, which Kant refers to as a practical law.

For anything to count as human willing, it must be based on a maxim to pursue some end through some means. Hence, in employing a maxim, any human willing already embodies the form of means-end reasoning that calls for evaluation in terms of hypothetical imperatives.

To that extent at least, then, anything dignified as human willing is subject to rational requirements. Second, recast that maxim as a universal law of nature governing all rational agents, and so as holding that all must, by natural law, act as you yourself propose to act in these circumstances. Third, consider whether your maxim is even conceivable in a world governed by this law of nature. If it is, then, fourth, ask yourself whether you would, or could, rationally will to act on your maxim in such a world.

If you could, then your action is morally permissible. If your maxim passes all four steps, only then is acting on it morally permissible. Hence, one is forbidden to act on the maxim of committing suicide to avoid unhappiness. By contrast, the maxim of refusing to assist others in pursuit of their projects passes the contradiction in conception test, but fails the contradiction in the will test at the fourth step.

Hence, we have a duty to sometimes and to some extent aid and assist others. Kant held that ordinary moral thought recognized moral duties toward ourselves as well as toward others. Hence, together with the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, Kant recognized four categories of duties: perfect duties toward ourselves, perfect duties toward others, imperfect duties toward ourselves and imperfect duties toward others.

Kant uses four examples in the Groundwork , one of each kind of duty, to demonstrate that every kind of duty can be derived from the CI, and hence to bolster his case that the CI is indeed the fundamental principle of morality.

We will briefly sketch one way of doing so for the perfect duty to others to refrain from lying promises and the imperfect duty to ourselves to develop talents.

The maxim of lying whenever it gets you what you want generates a contradiction once you try to combine it with the universalized version that all rational agents must, by a law of nature, lie when doing so gets them what they want.

My maxim, however, is to make a deceptive promise in order to get needed money. And it is a necessary means of doing this that a practice of taking the word of others exists, so that someone might take my word and I take advantage of their doing so. It is a world containing my promise and a world in which there can be no promises. Hence, it is inconceivable that I could sincerely act on my maxim in a world in which my maxim is a universal law of nature.

Since it is inconceivable that these two things could exist together, I am forbidden ever to act on the maxim of lying to get money. By contrast with the maxim of the lying promise, we can easily conceive of adopting a maxim of refusing to develop any of our talents in a world in which that maxim is a universal law of nature. It would undoubtedly be a world more primitive than our own, but pursuing such a policy is still conceivable in it.

However, it is not, Kant argues, possible to rationally will this maxim in such a world. Hence, although I can conceive of a talentless world, I cannot rationally will that it come about, given that I already will, insofar as I am rational, that I develop all of my own. Yet, given limitations on our time, energy and interest, it is difficult to see how full rationality requires us to aim to fully develop literally all of our talents.

Further, all that is required to show that I cannot will a talentless world is that, insofar as I am rational, I necessarily will that some talents in me be developed, not the dubious claim that I rationally will that they all be developed. Moreover, suppose rationality did require me to aim at developing all of my talents. Then, there seems to be no need to go further in the CI procedure to show that refusing to develop talents is immoral.

Given that, insofar as we are rational, we must will to develop capacities, it is by this very fact irrational not to do so. However, mere failure to conform to something we rationally will is not yet immorality. Failure to conform to instrumental principles, for instance, is irrational but not always immoral. This is a claim he uses not only to distinguish assertoric from problematic imperatives, but also to argue for the imperfect duty of helping others G He also appears to rely on this claim in each of his examples.

Each maxim he is testing appears to have happiness as its aim. One explanation for this is that, since each person necessarily wills her own happiness, maxims in pursuit of this goal will be the typical object of moral evaluation. Second, we must assume, as also seems reasonable, that a necessary means to achieving normal human happiness is not only that we ourselves develop some talent, but also that others develop some capacities of theirs at some time.

For instance, I cannot engage in the normal pursuits that make up my own happiness, such as playing piano, writing philosophy or eating delicious meals, unless I have developed some talents myself, and, moreover, someone else has made pianos and written music, taught me writing, harvested foods and developed traditions of their preparation.

Thus, we should assume that, necessarily, rational agents will the necessary and available means to any ends that they will. And once we add this to the assumptions that we must will our own happiness as an end, and that developed talents are necessary means to achieving that end, it follows that we cannot rationally will that a world come about in which it is a law that no one ever develops any of their natural talents.

We cannot do so, because our own happiness is the very end contained in the maxim of giving ourselves over to pleasure rather than self-development. Since we will the necessary and available means to our ends, we are rationally committed to willing that everyone sometime develop his or her talents. So since we cannot will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop any talents — given that it is inconsistent with what we now see that we rationally will — we are forbidden from adopting the maxim of refusing to develop any of our own.

This formulation states that we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. Intuitively, there seems something wrong with treating human beings as mere instruments with no value beyond this.

But this very intuitiveness can also invite misunderstandings. First, the Humanity Formula does not rule out using people as means to our ends. Clearly this would be an absurd demand, since we apparently do this all the time in morally appropriate ways. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any life that is recognizably human without the use of others in pursuit of our goals. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the chairs we sit on and the computers we type at are gotten only by way of talents and abilities that have been developed through the exercise of the wills of many people.

What the Humanity Formula rules out is engaging in this pervasive use of humanity in such a way that we treat it as a mere means to our ends. Thus, the difference between a horse and a taxi driver is not that we may use one but not the other as a means of transportation. Thus, supposing that the taxi driver has freely exercised his rational capacities in pursuing his line of work, we make permissible use of these capacities as a means only if we behave in a way that he could, when exercising his rational capacities, consent to — for instance, by paying an agreed on price.

Third, the idea of an end has three senses for Kant, two positive senses and a negative sense. An end in the first positive sense is a thing we will to produce or bring about in the world.

For instance, if losing weight is my end, then losing weight is something I aim to bring about. An end in this sense guides my actions in that once I will to produce something, I then deliberate about and aim to pursue means of producing it if I am rational.

Once I have adopted an end in this sense, it dictates that I do something: I should act in ways that will bring about the end or instead choose to abandon my goal. An end in the negative sense lays down a law for me as well, and so guides action, but in a different way.

Korsgaard offers self-preservation as an example of an end in a negative sense: We do not try to produce our self-preservation. Rather, the end of self-preservation prevents us from engaging in certain kinds of activities, for instance, picking fights with mobsters, and so on. That is, as an end, it is something I do not act against in pursuing my positive ends, rather than something I produce.

Humanity is in the first instance an end in this negative sense: It is something that limits what I may do in pursuit of my other ends, similar to the way that my end of self-preservation limits what I may do in pursuit of other ends. Insofar as it limits my actions, it is a source of perfect duties. Now many of our ends are subjective in that they are not ends that every rational being must have.

Humanity is an objective end, because it is an end that every rational being must have. Hence, my own humanity as well as the humanity of others limit what I am morally permitted to do when I pursue my other, non-mandatory, ends. The humanity in myself and others is also a positive end, though not in the first positive sense above, as something to be produced by my actions.

Rather, it is something to realize, cultivate or further by my actions. Becoming a philosopher, pianist or novelist might be my end in this sense. When my end is becoming a pianist, my actions do not, or at least not simply, produce something, being a pianist, but constitute or realize the activity of being a pianist.

Insofar as the humanity in ourselves must be treated as an end in itself in this second positive sense, it must be cultivated, developed or fully actualized. And insofar as humanity is a positive end in others, I must attempt to further their ends as well. In so doing, I further the humanity in others, by helping further the projects and ends that they have willingly adopted for themselves. Proper regard for something with absolute value or worth requires respect for it.

But this can invite misunderstandings. When I respect you in this way, I am positively appraising you in light of some achievement or virtue you possess relative to some standard of success. If this were the sort of respect Kant is counseling then clearly it may vary from person to person and is surely not what treating something as an end-in-itself requires. For instance, it does not seem to prevent me from regarding rationality as an achievement and respecting one person as a rational agent in this sense, but not another.

And Kant is not telling us to ignore differences, to pretend that we are blind to them on mindless egalitarian grounds. In such cases of respecting you because of who or what you are, I am giving the proper regard to a certain fact about you, your being a Dean for instance.

This sort of respect, unlike appraisal respect, is not a matter of degree based on your having measured up to some standard of assessment. We are to respect human beings simply because they are persons and this requires a certain sort of regard. We are not called on to respect them insofar as they have met some standard of evaluation appropriate to persons. And, crucially for Kant, persons cannot lose their humanity by their misdeeds — even the most vicious persons, Kant thought, deserve basic respect as persons with humanity.

Although Kant does not state this as an imperative, as he does in the other formulations, it is easy enough to put it in that form: Act so that through your maxims you could be a legislator of universal laws. This sounds very similar to the first formulation. However, in this case we focus on our status as universal law givers rather than universal law followers.

This is of course the source of the very dignity of humanity Kant speaks of in the second formulation. A rational will that is merely bound by universal laws could act accordingly from natural and non-moral motives, such as self-interest.

But in order to be a legislator of universal laws, such contingent motives, motives that rational agents such as ourselves may or may not have, must be set aside. Hence, we are required, according to this formulation, to conform our behavior to principles that express this autonomy of the rational will — its status as a source of the very universal laws that obligate it. The Autonomy Formula presumably does this by putting on display the source of our dignity and worth, our status as free rational agents who are the source of the authority behind the very moral laws that bind us.

For example, morality may require that we more aggressively help others in need, and egoism is inadequate for that task. For this we need sympathy. Even though Kant rejects a specific notion of sympathy—that is, sympathy as a feeling toward particular people—he still believes that there is a humanitarian emphasis within human reason.

Although reason cannot directly instruct me to sympathize with this or that person, it does instruct me to sympathize with the whole race of humans. This more generalized notion of sympathy emerges in the Formula of the End in Itself, which tells us to respect the inherent value of all people.

This goes beyond the purely negative mandate to avoid treating people as a means or using them as an instrument. A second early criticism of the categorical imperative is that by German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel — Like Schopenhauer, Hegel too focuses on the Formula of the Law of Nature: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.

The crux of the problem, for Hegel, is that the categorical imperative is a moral litmus test based on the absence or presence of a contradiction. While this may sound good in the abstract, it is difficult to detect contradictions within concrete actions that we know are contradictory. Hegel gives two examples here:. The rule that there should be no private property contains of itself no contradiction, nor does the proposition that this or that particular nation or family should not exist, or that no one should live at all.

Only if it is really fixed and assumed that private property and human life should exist and be respected, is it a contradiction to commit theft or murder.

Even communists or religious monks who take vows of poverty recognize that we have at least some private property, such as our toothbrushes and the clothes that we wear. But, Hegel argues, wherein lies the contradiction when making this claim? The second example is that a particular nation, family, or even the entire human race should not exist at all.

At its worst, this claim would mean that genocide and even omnicide—the killing of all humans—would be morally permissible. Where, though, is the inherent contradiction in this claim? What can we say in defense of Kant? First, it is important to recognize that, with any moral principle, there will be a gap between how it appears as an abstract statement, and how we apply it in concrete situations.

The challenge here is determining what counts as harm, and how serious that harm must be before it becomes morally wrong. Suppose that my hands are dirty, and I shake hands with you. Does the harm here rise to the level of immorality? Second, Kant provides enough examples to demonstrate how we apply the categorical imperative in concrete situations, particularly using the litmus test of detecting a contradiction.

The example of deceitful promises is a perfect illustration of how an immoral maxim may produce an internal contradiction when universalized. If we universally allow deceitful promises, this means that we may 1 keep our word and 2 not keep our word at the same time. This is as explicit a contradiction as one can get. Other immoral maxims do not lead to explicit internal contradictions like this, and, instead, Kant tries to show how they lead to external contradictions.

For example, it is wrong to waste my talents since it is contrary to my inherent rational obligation to develop my talents. It is wrong to deny charity to others since it is contrary to my inherent rational wish to receive charity when I am in need. For most other immoral actions that Kant does not specifically illustrate, it is easiest to see these as involving external contradictions as well.

Stealing is wrong, perhaps, because it is contrary to our rational obligation to live in peace with our neighbors. Murder is wrong, perhaps, because it is contrary to our rational obligation to respect the lives of others. Such care of ourselves requires that we have at least some private property, just as, for example, a bird claims some type of ownership of its nest.

Kant believed that our moral duties spring immediately from human reason, without any consideration of the tangible effects of our actions on our personal happiness. For Kant, the categorical imperative is a method of directly accessing the commands of our reason, independent of other considerations. By contrast, Mill believed that our moral obligations spring only from considerations of how our actions affect human happiness.

However, Mill argues that the categorical imperative does not succeed as a purely rational source of obligation. Instead, he says, it is actually a disguised version of the utilitarian principle—which is the very last thing that Kant thought his principle was:. All he shows is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur. Although Mill cites the general formula of the categorical imperative in the above quote, he directs his attack against the Formula of the Law of Nature, which tells us that an action is wrong if a contradiction arises when universalizing the intended maxim.

According to Mill, the categorical imperative fails to reveal any such contradiction, and the only thing it does reveal is that the consequences of universalizing a maxim involve more unhappiness than happiness. I should ignore the harmful consequences of universalized tax evasion, and, instead, hunt for a contradiction, either internal or external.

But this is a tough task to accomplish. Although Kant thinks that universalization merely involves looking for the presence of a contradiction, according to Mill we are actually envisioning the unpleasant effects of a universalized rule. The short answer is that Kant is in fact trying to rescue the moral principle of universalization from the distorted ways that consequentialists like Mill have been using it. Kant would probably agree that universalized tax evasion would have bad effects on society.

That is just a natural side effect of widespread deceit. What Kant is saying, though, is that harmful effects do not make actions immoral.

There is something inherently wrong with the actions themselves because they conflict with our rational intuitions about moral duty. We must reject the whole tendency to link morality with consequences.

If universalization is only about envisioning consequences, then universalization must be rejected as a moral guideline. Universalization still can be an important moral litmus test, in spite of its tainted consequentialist history. But how do I know which one is the correct maxim? We would expect any adequate moral theory to condemn this action. So, if Kant is correct, universalizing this action should generate a contradiction. But what is the maxim of my action here? The key to constructing a maxim is to determine the intention behind an action.

Kant illustrates the connection between maxims and intentions here:. Every immoral man has his maxims May a man, for instance, mutilate his body for profit?

May he sell a tooth? May he surrender himself at a price to the highest bidder? What is the intent in these cases? It is to gain material advantage. For example, if I hit a pedestrian while driving my car, from a moral standpoint it makes a big difference whether I was hoping to hit or to avoid the pedestrian. Today, we do not speak about the maxim of our actions but prefer to speak simply about our intention. In constructing my maxim, then, I look to my intention.

It may not be any easier for us as individuals when we struggle to discover why we do things. In fact, Kant believes that it is nearly impossible to discover our precise intentions:. We can never, even by the strictest examination, get completely behind the secret incentives of action; since, when the question is of moral worth, it is not with the actions which we see that we are concerned, but with those inward principles of them which we do not see.

Although I may not know what my exact intentions are for a given action, I can make a best guess or even consider a few possible intentions just to cover all the bases. With the categorical imperative, then, I may have to devise a few maxims and see what the outcome of each would be when universalized. This adds extra steps to the categorical imperative, but they are steps that realistically reflect our limited knowledge of our intentions.

The one is a unique way of looking at the concept of universalization: formulate a maxim and detect a contradiction with it when universalized.

The other is a unique way of grounding morality in the intrinsic value and dignity of people. In this final section, we will look at some stubborn problems with these formulas. The heart of the problem is that Kant attempts to model all moral judgments after the example of deceitful promises, but it is not a very good model to follow.

The illustration of deceitful promises is a very striking one, and it does produce an internal contradiction.

If we say as a general rule that we may make deceitful promises, then we logically contradict the concept of promise keeping itself. Specifically, we make a promise and deny the institution of promise keeping at the same time. This is the example that he starts with in the Foundations, and the one that he devotes the most time to. While the example of suicide is similar, it is much weaker and does not produce a genuine contradiction.

The contradiction with the suicide maxim, as Kant explains it, is that the self-love principle inclines me to preserve my life but also inclines me to end my life. This, though, is not a contradiction when the differing inclinations happen at different times. First, the contradictions with these two are not internal but external.

The contradiction arises only when we presume the existence of an independent duty. The second difference involves universalization. With deceitful promises, an internal contradiction arises only when the act is considered as a universal rule.

If I alone kill myself, then I am still acting contrary to my rational obligation to stay alive. There may be other examples like the deceitful promise one that do indeed produce internal contradictions, but a single example alone does not constitute a general moral principle. This amounts to a new interpretation of the FUL with significant interpretive and philosophical advantages.

On existing interpretations, the question one should ask is whether one can will a candidate maxim as a universal law without this generating a contradiction. There are different accounts of the nature of the contradiction involved, but each interpretation seems to face problems. In this essay, I propose an alternative reading of the contradiction at issue and argue that it solves these problems.

On leading interpretations, this simultaneity condition is routinely omitted from the description of the FUL. On the interpretation I defend in this essay, by contrast, it is essential to articulating the moral criterion expressed by the Formula. GMS, AA How exactly this volitional self-contradiction is generated will be discussed below. If this argument is convincing, it provides not only a plausible interpretation of the texts but also a solution to important philosophical problems that have long been associated with the FUL.

I first examine the leading interpretations of the nature of the contradiction generated in the case of impermissible maxims, and I outline the main problems raised by these accounts of the FUL section 1. My focus in this essay is on the nature and location of the contradiction generated in the case of maxims that fail the criterion articulated in the FUL. Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can simultaneously [zugleich] will that it become a universal law. The following representative statements from prominent Kant scholars and Kantian moral theorists are typical in this regard:.

FUL [tells us] that morality requires that we act only on a maxim that could in fact be a universal law. Guyer [4]. The categorical imperative is the law of acting only on maxims that you can will to be universal laws. Korsgaard [5]. Reath [7]. Wood [8]. These formulations differ in a number of important respects, and I do not mean to suggest that there is one standard reading of the FUL as a whole.

The reason they omit it is not that they fail to notice it, and below I discuss the role they attribute to the simultaneity condition. Yet they clearly assume that this condition can be omitted from a description of the moral criterion articulated in the FUL without this affecting its meaning in any important way.

There are different accounts of the contradiction involved, [10] but each of the leading interpretations is in some respect dissatisfying. On one influential line of interpretation, the contradiction involved in willing a maxim as a universal law is a contradiction between willing the universalized maxim and endorsing a certain value.

Following Hegel, critics have asserted that contradictions emerge only on the basis of substantive evaluative presuppositions. The absence of property, in a world in which the maxim of stealing is a universal law is not contradictory, he argues; only if one presupposes that there should be property, or that property should be respected, does it become contradictory to will the maxim of stealing as a universal law. Over the past few decades, several Kantian moral theorists have developed new responses to this objection.

An example from the first set of cases is the maxim to promise falsely to repay a loan, in order to get money easily: If this maxim were a universal law, then promises to repay, made by those requesting loans, would not be believed, and one could not get easy money by promising falsely to repay. An example from the second set of cases is the maxim of egoism. The simultaneity condition plays a role only in the test for finding out whether this requirement is met. If it does, then the maxim cannot be willed to be a universal law and is morally impermissible.

She argues that rational agents as such are committed to certain rational principles, including the principle of willing the necessary and some sufficient means to any end to which one is committed. Furthermore, she presupposes that moral deliberators have basic knowledge of their own vulnerability and of the normal effects of acting on the maxims under consideration.

First of all, we cannot will a maxim as a universal law if the project stated in the maxim is impossible in a world in which the maxim is a universal law such as the project of making false promises in a world of universal deception ; universalizing such maxims yields a contradiction in conception.

For example, it would be inconsistent, for agents who are aware of their own vulnerability and finitude, to will a world of egoism, because they know as a matter of empirical fact that they often need help for the survival of their own agency.

Thus, she writes:. To universalize maxims agents must satisfy themselves that they can both adopt the maxim and simultaneously will that others do so. In determining whether they can do so they may find that they are defeated by either of the two types of contradiction [viz. Kant discusses this problem in terms of such a maxim , or the will that adopts it, contradicting itself. In other words, their accounts do not yield a self -contradiction of the maxim. Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can simultaneously will that it become a universal law.

GMS, AA , emphasis in original. Act in accordance with that maxim which can simultaneously make itself into a universal law. So act that the maxim of your will can always simultaneously hold as the principle of a universal legislation. Finally, here is the formulation of the Categorical Imperative in the Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals :.

Act on the basis of a maxim that can simultaneously hold as a universal law! Given that so many of the formulations of the Categorical Imperative contain a simultaneity condition, there is good reason to take a closer look at the contribution it makes to the meaning of the statements. Perhaps omitting it is not as harmless as it seems. I do not mean to imply that Kant was always consistent in his description of the moral criterion or in its application to specific examples.

This turns out to provide the key to a new [31] understanding of the contradiction generated in the case of maxims that fail to meet the FUL criterion. It was just lucky for those charities that I thought giving away money was fun. Moral worth only comes when you do something because you know that it is your duty and you would do it regardless of whether you liked it. Imagine two people out together drinking at a bar late one night, and each of them decides to drive home very drunk.

They drive in different directions through the middle of nowhere. One of them encounters no one on the road, and so gets home without incident regardless of totally reckless driving.

The other drunk is not so lucky and encounters someone walking at night, and kills the pedestrian with the car. Kant would argue that based on these actions both drunks are equally bad, and the fact that one person got lucky does not make them any better than the other drunk. After all, they both made the same choices, and nothing within either one's control had anything to do with the difference in their actions. The same reasoning applies to people who act for the right reasons.

If both people act for the right reasons, then both are morally worthy, even if the actions of one of them happen to lead to bad consequences by bad luck. Imagine that he gives to a charity and he intends to save hundreds of starving children in a remote village. The food arrives in the village but a group of rebels finds out that they have food, and they come to steal the food and end up killing all the children in the village and the adults too.

The intended consequence of feeding starving children was good, and the actual consequences were bad. Kant is not saying that we should look at the intended consequences in order to make a moral evaluation.

Kant is claiming that regardless of intended or actual consequences, moral worth is properly assessed by looking at the motivation of the action, which may be selfish even if the intended consequences are good. One might think Kant is claiming that if one of my intentions is to make myself happy, that my action is not worthy. This is a mistake. The consequence of making myself happy is a good consequence, even according to Kant. Kant clearly thinks that people being happy is a good thing.

There is nothing wrong with doing something with an intended consequence of making yourself happy, that is not selfishness. You can get moral worth doing things that you enjoy, but the reason you are doing them cannot be that you enjoy them, the reason must be that they are required by duty. Also, there is a tendency to think that Kant says it is always wrong to do something that just causes your own happiness, like buying an ice cream cone.

This is not the case. Kant thinks that you ought to do things to make yourself happy as long as you make sure that they are not immoral i.

Getting ice cream is not immoral, and so you can go ahead and do it. Doing it will not make you a morally worthy person, but it won't make you a bad person either. Many actions which are permissible but not required by duty are neutral in this way. It is fine if they enjoy doing it, but it must be the case that they would do it even if they did not enjoy it. The overall theme is that to be a good person you must be good for goodness sake. His argument for this is summarized by James Rachels as follows:.

After all, it is not as though people would stop believing each other simply because it is known that people lie when doing so will save lives. For one thing, that situation rarely comes up—people could still be telling the truth almost all of the time. Even the taking of human life could be justified under certain circumstances.

Take self-defense, for example. Maxims and the universal laws that result from them can be specified in a way that reflects all of the relevant features of the situation.

Consider the case of the Inquiring Murderer as described in the text. Suppose that you are in that situation and you lie to the murderer.

This maxim seems to pass the test of the categorical imperative. Procedure for determining whether a proposed action violates CI I am to do x in circumstances y in order to bring about z. I am to lie on a loan application when I am in severe financial difficulty and there is no other way to obtain funds, in order to ease the strain on my finances. Everyone always does x in circumstances y in order to bring about z. Everyone always lies on a loan application when he is in severe financial difficulty and there is no other way to obtain funds, in order to ease the strain on his finances.