The Moral Law

Six steps into the boldest answer to Glaucon: that morality is not about happiness at all, but the law reason gives itself — and that no person may ever be used as a mere means.

A course on the thought of Ethics.

Course outline

1. The Only Good Thing — The fourth answer to Glaucon begins by rejecting the third: morality is not about happiness or consequences at all. The only thing good without qualification is a good will; moral worth lies in…
2. The Categorical Imperative — The supreme principle of morality, derived from reason alone: act only on a maxim you could will to be a universal law. Hypothetical versus categorical imperatives, the test by universalization, and…
3. Persons as Ends — The second face of the moral law, and the one that strikes where utilitarianism was weakest: treat humanity, in yourself or anyone, always as an end and never merely as a means. Why persons have…
4. The Murderer at the Door — Kant's most notorious claim, faced without flinching: that you may not lie even to the murderer who asks where your friend is hiding. The rigorist's case, why it seems monstrous, the standard rescue…
5. Was Hiroshima Murder? — Elizabeth Anscombe takes the lectern to press an absolute harder than Kant dared and then to detonate the whole modern project. The protest against honoring Truman, the absolute prohibition on…

Part of the Symposium course library.