Question

provide a modern example of a categorical imperative in your life or culture.
philosophy.

Answer 1

A categorical imperative in my culture is “It is not permissible to commit murder”. I chose this particular imperative to illustrate what is so wrong with Kantian ethics to begin with. That is if you set the Categorical Imperative narrow enough it really turns into moral relativism. Everyone agrees that it’s not cool to murder, but what is murder? Is aborting a baby at 12 weeks murder, at 24, at 36? What if genetic testing shows the baby has Downs’s syndrome? Is that better or worse?How about assisted suicide? Is capital punishment murder? If a woman is being assaulted, and shoots her attacker is it murder? What if she only thought he was going to attack her? What if a man shoots up a McDonald’s because he had a tumor in his brain and thought they were all aliens? In the end if the category in the Categorical Imperative can be set so narrow as not to include anything controversial, how is that any different than relativism? It seems to me that we are just setting the categories of the imperatives based on the situation. If you shoot someone specifically because you want to steal their watch, and you have grown up in a relatively stable household, and you do not suffer from addictions or mental health problems, and the person you are stealing from is not a Trump supporter, then it is categorically wrong to shoot them.