Question

How does the justification of Everybody's Doing It align with Kants Categorical Imperative?

Answer 1

Answers :-

I believe that it is quite common for people to justify their conduct with the argument that “Everybody’sdoing it”. This is a way of thinking that people will jump to when they are faced with a situation wherethey have to make a decision or take an action where they do something that is morally correct orchoosing to “go with the flow”. It seems like people will use this justification when the action that theyare doing is an action that is wrong or frowned up, but feel it is justifiable because others are doing thesame thing.These are unconditional commands. For example: "Don't cheat on your exams." Even though you want to cheat, which would serve your interest, you may not cheat,or Imagine you’re driving in your car, you’re going with the flow of traffic and not passing anyone,yet you’re driving ten miles an hour over the speed limit, when you see flashing lights behindyou. You get pulled over by the police and are told that you were speeding. You may not say itbut you would certainly be thinking that you were only doing what everyone else was doing.

Kant on the moral worth of people

He has something to state about what makes someone a good person. Kante believes that a person's actions will determine their moral worth.

When Everybody is Doing it

Kant developed a procedure for determining whether a proposed action violates categorical imperative which is:

1. Formulate the maxim:

I am to do x in circumstances y in order to bring about z.

For example:

I am to lie on a loan application when in severe financial strains and there is no other way to obtain funds, in order to ease my financial difficulties.

2. Generalize the maxim into a law of nature (Everybody's doing it):

Everyone always does x in circumstances y in order to bring about z.

For example:

Everyone always lie on a loan application when they are in financial strains and their is no other way to obtain funds in order to ease my financial difficulties.

After you generalize the maxim into a law of nature, you find out that the maxim flunks which indicates that we have a perfect duty to refrain from acing on such maxim.

Our perfect duties are negative because they require that we never perform certain types of actions which can be fulfilled only in specific ways.

Conclusion

Doing something because everyone is doing it is not just if the deed is negative or can lead to a negative impact on you or people around you later on.