Comments on: Categorical Imperative

By: crowdedumbrella

crowdedumbrella — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:12:17 +0000

It seems that you are dealing with white lies when it comes to telling a lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I would say white lies are best reserved for closed doors and between family members or close friends. This is the reason why I think it cannot be made into universal law. Because when extrapolated into the general public, white lies are no different than regular lies.

By: Boone B. Gorges

Boone B. Gorges — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:02:12 +0000

The example of lying to the ugly person is a particularly interesting one, and you come up with a novel justification for why this lie is permitted by duty. I might offer the following amendment. If it really is the case, as you suggest, that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, then it’s not a lie to tell an “ugly” person that she’s beautiful. That’s because the truth of “x is ugly”, on your view, is either ambiguous or indeterminate. So the issue of whether it’s moral to lie doesn’t really appear to arise, and other duties–like “be nice to others”–come into play.

By: Cindy B.

Cindy B. — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:35:13 +0000

I agree with you that lying is done out of selfish reasons not duty, at least most of the time, there are those other cases we have discussed in class, where you may lie to save your grandma’s life from the potential murder at the door who says “Where is your grandma?” Lying of course is never done out of duty.