Q&A: The Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative
Question
A question came up for me in a discussion with a friend.
Suppose you live in a universe where you can steal from any person only once. In such a universe, does the morality of theft, from the individual’s perspective, change before and after someone steals from him (if he uses only the categorical imperative as the source of morality)?
Before someone steals from him, he can think, “I don’t want people to steal from me, and therefore I would want it to be a general law,” etc. But after someone steals from him, what’s done cannot be undone, so seemingly he should no longer care about theft (whether it is moral or not). It sounds pretty strange to me that a person thinks something is immoral, and then once that thing happens to him, he no longer sees it as immoral.
What do you think?
Answer
I’m not sure I understood the question. It seems to me that you’re identifying the Kantian principle with Hillel the Elder: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow,” but that identification is mistaken. Kant does not tell you not to do what you do not want others to do to you, but rather not to do what you would not want to become a universal law. Even in such a world, I would not want that to become a universal law, even if I myself would not be harmed by it.
Discussion on Answer
Because I don’t want people to steal from others. I also don’t want to live in a world where people steal (and also, selfishly: that way they’ll suspect me too and worry that I’m a thief).
Why, after someone has already stolen from you, would you still not want that to become a universal law?