Q&A: Categorical Morality
Categorical Morality
Question
In your article “The Categorical Imperative in Jewish Law,” note 3, you mentioned that you think the claim that there exists an a priori categorical morality is correct, but Kant’s arguments for proving this are not valid.
Have you written anywhere about the justification for categorical morality in your view?
Answer
I don’t recall. The claim that there is a categorical imperative follows from the very definition of morality. But the content of the imperative (act in all your deeds in a way that you would want to become a universal law) is not logically grounded. Even though in my opinion it is correct intuitively.
Discussion on Answer
Hello Matan. There is nothing on earth whose existence is proven a priori. Anselm argued that the existence of God can be proven that way, but that too is probably not valid. Every proof is based on foundational assumptions, and there is no claim whose truth depends on nothing outside itself (except for logical tautologies, which say nothing about the world).
And in our case, if you think there is morality, then there must be a categorical imperative; and if not, then of course not.
The claim that there is a categorical imperative follows from the very claim “there is morality.” However, this claim has not been proven; there can be things that are defined but do not exist in reality (for example, fire-breathing dragons). Is it proven a priori that morality / the categorical imperative exists?