Categorical Imperative

Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. – Immanuel Kant

I was watching a TV program about the above philosophy tonight and since I’ve never studied philosophy before, Kant’s categorical imperative was completely new information to me.

While most of us would probably agree that only doing things that we would be okay with the entire public doing is a pretty safe moral attitude, I wonder if it’s actually used. I’d be interested in putting our own behavior to the test.

Let’s say you’re not really good about recycling. You mean to, but you just never get around to it and it’s so much easier just to mix it all up and take it out as one big bag of trash. Well, that’s not a huge deal. How many recyclable items are you throwing away? Maybe 10 a week, maybe 20. At the end of the day it’s not a major disaster.

Now let’s assume, no one recycles cause what you do became universal law. Suddenly, the numbers have grown exponentially. Suddenly, it became a huge deal. Suddenly, you’re the cause of a major problem. Don’t you feel responsible?

You’d better.

Yet in our day-to-day encounters how many of us actually use such a barometer?

I can personally volunteer the information that I would fail this test in a different way almost every single day. Some days I don’t show as much patience as I would expect other people to show, or at least the world would be a bad place if everyone practiced as little patience as I do on those days. Other days, I’m too lazy. And at times too selfish. I try to be conscientious and I try to not overdo any of my negative traits, but I can not in good conscience say that I’d measure up.

On the other hand, I can see cases where Kant’s theory doesn’t work so well. Life is often not so black and white. Sometimes we have to reprimand people, sometimes we have to lie, sometimes we have to be mean in the short term to ensure the long term turns out okay.

But those are the exceptions.

Overall, I think the concept of “imagine everyone in the world did exactly as you did” is a good strategy to live in a society. Maybe if we all kept the principle in mind more, we might rethink a lot of our behavior or at least grow a conscious seed.

Sometimes a seed is all it takes.

How well do you measure up in Kant’s barometer?

Previously? All-nighter.