The Categorical Imperative And Immanuel Kant's Philosophy On Lying

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Immanuel Kant is a firm believer in the ideology that morality is solely based on duty and reason alone. This simply way of thinking is known as a deontological moral theory, which states that “the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfill our [mankind’s] duty” (“Kantian Ethics”). Based on his theory and throughout a significant number of his writings, Kant argues that it is not okay to lie. If Kant’s theory is correct, then no one could ever lie, not even to protect a friend from serious harm. However, it is obvious that the practical function of morality would allow an individual to lie in order to protect someone’s life from malevolent encounters. Thus, Kant’s ideology is false in
Many proponents of Kant claim that the categorical imperative helps to alleviate cases of conforming to duty and advocates for doing things for the sake of moral obligation. While proponents may be correct in deciphering the meaning of the imperative, they do not take into account its practical application. For example, Kant and his advocates claim that lying cannot be willed because the categorical imperative commands that all actions must be able to be willed universally and treat individuals as ends. This logic may be deemed appropriate in ideal and rational situations, but Kant’s moral philosophies begin to lose validity when the circumstances change and become uncertain. This loss of validity is clearly illustrated by Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant who challenges Kant’s logic on the duty of always telling the truth. Constant states the following:
The moral principle that it is one’s duty to speak the truth…would make society impossible. We have the proof of this in the very direct consequences which have been drawn from this principle by a German philosopher [Kant], who goes so far as to affirm that to tell a falsehood to a murderer who ask[s] us whether our friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had not taken refuge in our house, would be a crime (qtd in

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