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6185
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No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant]
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Full Idea:
If my maxim is 'augment my property by all safe means', I can't make that a law allowing me to keep a dead man's loan, because no one would make a loan if that were the moral law.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§4)
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A reaction:
This is a simple illustration of Kant's strategy and it shows clearly how, for all his talk of 'pure reason', his moral law is strongly guided by consequences, and that these can only judged by prior values - for example, that loans are a good thing.
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6187
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Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant]
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Full Idea:
The form of universality is itself the determining ground of the will, …and from this limitation alone, and not from the addition of any exernal drive, the concept of obligation arises to extend the maxim of self-love also to the happiness of others.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§8)
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A reaction:
This is the heroic and optimistic part of Kant's philosophy, the attempt to derive altruism from pure reason. The claim seems to be that maxims don't motivate until they have been universalised. I fear that only altruism could add such motivation.
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6201
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Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant]
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Full Idea:
In the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
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A reaction:
The worry here is that Kant has set up an exam that you have to pass before you can be treated as a moral end. Animals and the ecosystem will fail the exam, and even some human beings will be borderline cases. We should respect everything.
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