What Kant says is not just that you don't want to live in a world where nobody lies, but it's actually logically inconsistent to suppose a world where everyone lies. A lie is only a lie if it's offered as something to believe, but in a world where everyone lies, no one would ever believe what anyone says, which means they couldn't be lies. It's the logic part that he thinks is important, because the moral law has to come from our own power of practical logic. Kant explicitly refers to situations where one party lies for the sake of convenience, or to get the upper hand on someone else; he doesn't talk about cases where you might be saving someone's life.
Second point. You're right that it all depends on how you frame it. The debate then becomes whether that is to Kant's credit, or a flaw in his system. Normally, what we demand of an ethical system is that it tell us what is right and what is wrong. Let's call that the result. If the result depends on how you emphasize elements of the situation, then you can get the result you want by contriving the question. This is normally considered a weakness in the system; at the very least, we should say this means ethics as Kant puts it can't be a science, which is what he wanted it to be.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-11-01 04:36 am (UTC)What Kant says is not just that you don't want to live in a world where nobody lies, but it's actually logically inconsistent to suppose a world where everyone lies. A lie is only a lie if it's offered as something to believe, but in a world where everyone lies, no one would ever believe what anyone says, which means they couldn't be lies. It's the logic part that he thinks is important, because the moral law has to come from our own power of practical logic. Kant explicitly refers to situations where one party lies for the sake of convenience, or to get the upper hand on someone else; he doesn't talk about cases where you might be saving someone's life.
Second point. You're right that it all depends on how you frame it. The debate then becomes whether that is to Kant's credit, or a flaw in his system. Normally, what we demand of an ethical system is that it tell us what is right and what is wrong. Let's call that the result. If the result depends on how you emphasize elements of the situation, then you can get the result you want by contriving the question. This is normally considered a weakness in the system; at the very least, we should say this means ethics as Kant puts it can't be a science, which is what he wanted it to be.
-- Your friendly neighborhood phil grad student