Universalizability Flashcards
It must be true that a maxim can be a maxim for everyone…
If it is to be a morally permissible maxim for everyone
Where does Kant argue that the universalizability constraint originates from?
From an a prior investigation of the categorical imperative
What to moral prescriptions need to be?
Compossible
What is meant by compossible?
Morality can simultaneously make the same demand upon everyone’s action without contradiction
How does a universalizability constraint help ensure that moral prescriptions are compossible?
Tests maxims to make sure that the maxim can be held by all agents without conflict
Can you recast your maxim as…
A universal law of nature governing all rational agents
How does universalizability prevent special pleading?
It shows that such morally impermissible maxims are wrong even when done by a single individual, asks ‘what if everyone did that?’
What is a simple defence of Universalizability?
It can be defended on the pragmatic grounds that it usually gets questions about the moral permissibility of different maxims right
Each-we dilemma
If each rather than none of us does what would be better for himself, we shall be doing what would be worse for each of us
What is Parfit concerned about in Kantian ethics?
How it finds it difficult to account for cases in which an act’s wrongness depends on the amount of people who act in this way
What does Parfit argue we end up falling afoul to when judging the moral permissibility of maxims on universalizability?
The Ideal Worlds Objection
What is the Ideal Worlds Objection?
We end up agreeing to moral prescriptions that would be agreeable in an ideal world but are useless/dangerous in the real world
How could we respond to the ideal worlds objection?
Adopt a conditional maxim, conditional maxims are universalizable and pass the Formula of the Universal Law
What is Parfit’s response to the adoption of conditional maxims?
Conditional maxims which we intuitively consider to be wrong could also pass the test of universalizability
The new ideal worlds objection
Once a few people have failed to do what we would rationally will everyone to do, Kant’s formula ceases to imply that any act is wrong
