Categorical morality
In your article “The Categorical Imperative in Halacha” note 3 you mentioned that you think that the claim regarding the existence of a priori categorical morality is a correct claim, but that Kant’s arguments to prove this are not valid.
Have you written anywhere about your opinion on the justification of categorical morality?
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The claim that there is a categorical imperative stems from the very claim that "there is morality." However, this claim is not proven; there may be things that are defined and do not exist in reality (for example, fire-breathing dragons). Is it proven a priori that morality/categorical imperative exists?
Hello Matan. There is nothing on earth whose existence is proven a priori. Anselm claimed that the existence of God is proven in this way, but this is probably not valid either. Every proof is based on fundamental premises, and there is no claim that its truth does not depend on anything outside of it (except logical tautologies that say nothing about the world).
And for our purposes, if you believe that there is morality there must be a categorical imperative, and if not – then of course not.
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