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Lying In Kant's Categorical Imperative

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Kant’s Categorical Imperative
How does lying violate Kant’s formulation? When a person tells a lie it is often seen as being dishonest and, in some cases, can affect the most important quality in a human, which is the ability to make their own choices. Therefore, with each lie a person tells contradicts a part of them that gives that person a moral worth. For instance, if I was to tell a lie and it lead a person to a decision that they would have otherwise not have chosen, had they known the truth, I would have harmed that person’s human dignity and autonomy. The person doing the lying only robs others of their choices. Kant said, in order, for us to value ourselves and others as a means instead of an end, we need to have perfect duties to avoid damaging, interfering with, or misusing the ability to make free decisions, which means –no lying. There …show more content…

Kant explains that we should be able to distinguish which actions are moral, and which are not. 1. Formula of Universal Law is best described from this statement, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction” (Kant, 1785, 1993). A maxim is a rule or principal on which you choose to act. It says that you are not allowed to do anything yourself that you would not be willing to allow everyone else to do as well. If we expect others to keep their promises, then we are obligated to ours as well. The Formula of the End, “We should always treat humans solely as an ends, and never as a means to an end” meaning that a person cannot morally be used as an object. This formulation can have both a positive and negative impact. The Formula of Autonomy says that we should live by the rules in a community and we all respect each other. A place to where one must choose to act by maxims that imply absolute

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