La loi universelle de Kant

Résumé du document

However, how could I know whether I can trust my feelings or not? How can I be sure that even my most honest behaviour is not motivated by some interest? An action, which seems perfectly moral for an independent observer ? other people's behaviour is only apparent and external to us ? may be determined by inclinations (desire, self-love, etc.). For example giving to the poors may hide a desire for honour and distinction or even selfishness. On the other hand one cannot see a true moral action as such, for we cannot be sure of what the action was determined by. That's why Kant states that it is impossible to empirically know whether an action is moral or not and even to know whether there have been any moral actions at all ...

Extraits

[...] For example, if someone hides a Jew in his cellar and that some Nazis come and ask him where the Jew is, then according to Kant he has to tell the truth and denounce him, whatever the consequences are. does not begin by reasoning, but by feeling' Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essay on the Origin of Language. For Rousseau feelings and emotion are part of our nature, just as reason is. Therefore, denying our emotions the faculty to determine moral requirements (as Kant does) is, in some way, denying our own nature. [...]

[...] For him, lying is purely immoral, because it leads to an internal contradiction[35]. Benjamin Constant[36] objected that we have a right to lie in particular circumstances, for instance in order to protect someone. But Kant replies[37] that lie always harms another; if not some other particular man, still it harms mankind generally, for it vitiates the source of law itself'.[38] Hence for Kant to be truthful is an absolute duty, and no empirical and subjective end (e.g. saving one's life) should corrupt it[39]. [...]

[...] Of course this can be debated, but I think Kant's argument is clear enough to avoid Hegel's criticism. However, this raises another formal problem, more precisely about maxims. Indeed, the choice of a maxim can be very confusing, if universalised. For example, suppose I hold for maxim that I want to study at the university; if I universalise the maxim that is if everyone studied at the university the society would collapse because nobody would work anymore, so I cannot be willing everyone to study. [...]

[...] only on that maxim which you can at the same time will as a universal law' (Kant). What does this mean? Does it succeed in making explicit our concept of a moral requirement? When facing the difficulty to determine an absolute criterion of good and evil, our most common temptation is to have recourse to our inner feeling of good and evil. That is the same as saying do what I believe is good and I avoid what I consider to be wrong'. [...]

[...] Sullivan noticed, ‘suppose an individual adopts it as his policy never to set for himself an end whose achievement appears to require the cooperation of others'[28], then in this case he could without internal contradiction will that his maxim not help others') become a universal law. So for Hegel, the maxim not help others' is contradictory only if one assumes that beneficence ought to exist, and we can like above imagine a society in which there would be no solidarity. Does that mean Kant's theory is vacuous? We need to remember the expression ‘that you can will': Kant does not say that selfishness prevents the society from existing, he even says that a purely altruistic action may have never existed and will perhaps never exist. [...]