Didn't Kant say "do good though the heavens fall"? Or is that someone else's crude simplification? It seems to me that the "moral" part becomes basically irrelevant then, since it is superseded by the "ethical" part, but not vice versa. In fact you've given a utilitarian/ethical/consequential justification for the "moral rule" there - society couldn't function if everybody lied (though as an anthropologist, I suspect society wouldn't function if everyone told the truth - check out those adds for lemon iced tea for an amusing example of why...)
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Re: Kant and Ethics
Date: 2005-06-07 06:04 pm (UTC)It seems to me that the "moral" part becomes basically irrelevant then, since it is superseded by the "ethical" part, but not vice versa.
In fact you've given a utilitarian/ethical/consequential justification for the "moral rule" there - society couldn't function if everybody lied (though as an anthropologist, I suspect society wouldn't function if everyone told the truth - check out those adds for lemon iced tea for an amusing example of why...)