ID: white text on a black background around a faded photo of a person with a black face scarf on and a hat that says “illegal” on it:
“But it’s illegal”
"Saying that something is illegal is not an argument, it is an appeal to authority. Laws are arbitrary dictates to control a population, not universal standards of morality.
Credit: freethouchtproject.com
Kants whole system of ethics is built around the categorical imperative, which is so rigid it can’t honestly be used in the real world. The dude was a miserly shut in that glazed authority for authority’s sake and tried to frame it as “autonomy”. His writings are only good for paralyzing someone into a perpetual state of anxiety and indecision.
No wonder you take issue with the words used in this post. Kant had to use hyper-specific and specialized definitions for every other word in his writing to make the absolute drivel he was pushing out sound profound. To the point that when you peel back all of the layers of abstraction and attempt to arrive at something resembling advice on how to live you’re left with a giant contradictory mess that is best summarized as “Be good cause it’s good. Please love me king Frederick”
You’re applying Kant, someone who is almost entirely concerned with metaphysics, to a situation that is only tacitly related to his whole schtick, while using his super-special and not at all externally applicable definitions for common words, and expecting other people to: 1. Know you’re approaching this from Kant without previously saying it and 2. Being a real chode about it.
To actually address the post: in the real world, law doesn’t determine morality. Sometimes the law imperfectly reflects aspects of morality (murder for example) and other times it’s its own thing (jay walking). Basing your moral framework off of the laws of a state is reductive, harmful, and obviously ill-informed
Kant very clearly states that personal ethics should be above other considerations (‘the moral law within me’ and like 300 pages on the topic) and gives an intellectual framework to justify the submission of unethical laws to moral criticism.
Drivel, yeah, sure. I mean, you can disagree, but drivel? It’s not the very hungry caterpillar, I’ll give you that, but it’s usually fairly respected.