Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:18:17.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A New Kantian Response to Maxim-Fiddling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2011

Andrew Sneddon*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa

Abstract

There has long been a suspicion that Kant's test for the universalizability of maxims can be easily subverted: instead of risking failing the test, design your maxim for any action whatsoever in a manner guaranteed to pass. This is the problem of maxim-fiddling. The present discussion of this problem has two theses:

  1. 1] That extant approaches to maxim-fiddling are not satisfactory;

  2. 2] That a satisfactory response to maxim-fiddling can be articulated using Kantian resources, especially the first two formulations of the categorical imperative.

This approach to maxim-fiddling draws our attention to a Kantian notion of an offence against morality itself that has largely been overlooked.

Type
Articles
Copyright
copyright © Kantian Review 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Feldman, Fred (1978) Introductory Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Galvin, Richard (2009) ‘The Universal Law Formulas’. In Thomas E. Hill, Jr. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Kant's Ethics. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell), 5282.Google Scholar
Ginet, Carl (1990) On Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2000) Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara (1993) The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. Jr. (2000) Respect, Pluralism, and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1993) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Patricia (2004) ‘Kant's Argument for the Categorical Imperative’. Noûs, 38/4, 555584.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1996) Creating the Kingdom of Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alisdair (1966) A Short History of Ethics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mele, Alfred (ed.) (1997) The Philosophy of Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Onora (1975) Acting on Principle. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Onora (1989) Constructions of Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Roger J. (1989) Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2007) Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (1999) Kant's Ethical Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2008) Kantian Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zweig, Arnulf (2009) ‘Reflections on the Enduring Value of Kant's Ethics’. In Thomas E. Hill, Jr. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Kant's Ethics. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell), 255264.Google Scholar