Theories

[Spy]

1 Everyone ought always to do, or try to do, whatever would make things go best.

2 Everyone ought to follow the principles of which it is true that, if they were universally followed, things would go best.

3 Everyone ought to follow the principles whose being universally followed everyone could rationally will, or choose.

4 Everyone ought to follow the principles that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.

5 Everyone ought to strive to promote a world of universal virtue and deserved happiness.

6 Everyone ought to follow the optimistic principles, because these are the only principles that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.

7 Everyone ought to follow the principles that no one could reasonably reject.

8 An act is wrong just when such acts are disallowed by some principle that is optimific (producing the best consequences), uniquely universally willable, and not reasonably rejectable.

What now matters most is that we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth's atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life. If we are the only rational animals in the Universe, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our descendants might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including those who suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exist.

[Spy]

Whether our acts are right or wrong, Kant claims, depends on our maxims, by which Kant usually means our policies and their underlying aims.

Some of Kant's examples are: 'Increase my wealth by every safe means', 'Let insult pass unavenged', 'Make lying promises when that would benefit me', 'Give no help to those who are in need', and 'the maxim of self-love, or one's own happiness.'

According to one of Kant's versions of his Formula of Universal Law, which we can call

the Impossibility Formula: It is wrong to act on any maxim that could not be a universal law.

[Spy]

This formula needs to be explained.

It is wrong to act on any maxim of which it is true that, if everyone accepted and acted on this maxim, or everyone believed that it was permissible to act upon it, that would make it impossible for anyone to successfully act upon it.

Could this formula help us to decide which acts are wrong?

Consider first the maxim 'Kill or injure other people when that would benefit me'.

If we all accepted and acted on this maxim, that would not make it impossible for any such act to succeed. So this formula does not condemn such acts. Nor does it condemn self-interested coercion. If we all tried to coerce other people whenever that would benefit ourselves, some of these acts would succeed.

[Spy]

Kant writes: I want everyone else to be beneficent towards me; hence I ought also to be beneficent toward everyone else.

This may remind us of

The Golden Rule: We ought to treat others as we would want others to treat us.

This rule expresses what may be the most widely accepted fundamental moral idea, which was independently discovered in at least three of the world's earliest civilisations. Though Kant calls his formula 'the supreme principle of morality', he dismisses the Golden Rule as 'trivial' and unfit to be a universal law. Does this rule deserve Kant's contempt?

[Spy]

In rejecting the Golden Rule, Kant writes:

"It cannot be a universal law, because it does not contain the ground of duties toward oneself, nor that of duties of love toward others (for many a man would gladly agree that others should not benefit him if only he might be excused from benefiting them); and finally it does not contain the ground of duties owed to others, for a criminal would argue on this ground against the judge who punishes him."

[Spy]

According to Kant, the Golden Rule does not imply that we have duties to benefit others. Many people, Kant claims, would gladly never to be benefited by others.

[Spy]

This objection backfires. These people ought to benefit or help others, the Golden Rule implies, if they themselves would want to be helped. Kant does not deny that these people would want to be helped. Kant does not deny that these people would want to be helped. He makes the different claim that these people would agree not to be helped if they would thereby be excused from helping others. To state this claim in Kantian terms, these people would will it to be true that the maxim of not helping others be a universal law. That does not imply that, according to the Golden Rule, these people have no duty to help others. It is Kant's formula, not the Golden rule, that permits us to act on maxims that we could will to be universal laws.

[Spy]

Kant's objection might be revised. He might ask us to consider the people who do not want to be helped by others, whether or not they would thereby be excused from helping others, whether or not they would thereby be excused from helping others. Kant might then claim that, since these people do not want to be helped, the Golden Rule fails to imply that they have a duty to help others.

[Spy]

As before, however, this objection would apply to Kant's own formula. According to this formula, these people ought to help others if they could not will it to be true that the maxim of not helping others be a universal law. If these people do not even want to be helped, they could more easily will that this maxim be such a law. No one could will such a law, Kant claims, because such a person would thereby 'rob himself of all hope of the assistance that he wishes for himself'. This claim does not apply to people who don't wish to be helped.

[Spy]

Kant might reply that, in not wishing or wanting to be helped, these people would be irrational. And he might then argue that, when applied to such people, his formula does better than the Golden Rule. Kant might claim that since the Golden Rule appeals to these people's desires, which are irrational, this rule fails to imply that these people have a duty to help others. In contrast, because these people could not rationally will it to be true that they would never be helped, Kant's formula does imply that they have this duty.

[striker999]

1 Everyone ought always to do, or try to do, whatever would make things go best.

2 Everyone ought to follow the principles of which it is true that, if they were universally followed, things would go best.

3 Everyone ought to follow the principles whose being universally followed everyone could rationally will, or choose.

4 Everyone ought to follow the principles that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.

5 Everyone ought to strive to promote a world of universal virtue and deserved happiness.

6 Everyone ought to follow the optimistic principles, because these are the only principles that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.

7 Everyone ought to follow the principles that no one could reasonably reject.

8 An act is wrong just when such acts are disallowed by some principle that is optimific (producing the best consequences), uniquely universally willable, and not reasonably rejectable.

What now matters most is that we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth's atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life. If we are the only rational animals in the Universe, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our descendants might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including those who suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exist.

just because you should, doesn't mean you have to...
I know what you mean..but it doesn't happen because: we tend to be greedy...
there is a lot of examples in real life...you just have to look and see the disgustingness of it all...bribe the judge?check.

[NorthStar]

All of this, everything here. Is complete invalid.

[Doc]

There's a reason I am against philosophical ideals of a perfect system of morals: because it would never work, since we humans have the "survive"- nature, not the "treat others well"-nature. You could call me selfish but I would rather have 5 million and all the other people 1 million than that everyone -including me- would have 1million. You strive to achieve something in life, but somebody has to make the "shitty jobs" and be "disfavored" for our whole system to work. I know that you (Plato) are aware that the system will not change, so why post this stuff to make us hate ourselves?

[TheWaaagh]

There's a reason I am against philosophical ideals of a perfect system of morals: because it would never work, since we humans have the "survive"- nature, not the "treat others well"-nature. You could call me selfish but I would rather have 5 million and all the other people 1 million than that everyone -including me- would have 1million. You strive to achieve something in life, but somebody has to make the "shitty jobs" and be "disfavored" for our whole system to work. I know that you (Plato) are aware that the system will not change, so why post this stuff to make us hate ourselves?

Change has to start somewhere. And if a system requires some people be disfavored so that others are favored, I'm not sure I would argue that it's "working" so much as it is just existing.

[Doc]

There's a reason I am against philosophical ideals of a perfect system of morals: because it would never work, since we humans have the "survive"- nature, not the "treat others well"-nature. You could call me selfish but I would rather have 5 million and all the other people 1 million than that everyone -including me- would have 1million. You strive to achieve something in life, but somebody has to make the "shitty jobs" and be "disfavored" for our whole system to work. I know that you (Plato) are aware that the system will not change, so why post this stuff to make us hate ourselves?

Change has to start somewhere. And if a system requires some people be disfavored so that others are favored, I'm not sure I would argue that it's "working" so much as it is just existing.

As to your first sentence, change is not necessarily good.
As to your second one, I would give you right- it is just "existing", simply because humans NEED a system. And to your critique of disfavoring: There only exist different poles- north and south, plus and minus, happy and sad, rich and poor. If there were no poor people then where would be no rich people (given everyone has the same amount of money). If we take this one step further, if there is nothing that we call being sad then there's nothing we can call happy, because happy is our neutral state and we enjoy it as much as we enjoy our present neutral state (for example sitting in the living room). There are no monopoles.
Summing up: There has to be evil for the good to exist. If everyone had the same thing then everything would be normal, regular, neutral and we would just, as you put it, "exist".