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- Title
Contradiction and Kant's Formula of Universal Law.
- Authors
Kleingeld, Pauline
- Abstract
Kant's most prominent formulation of the Categorical Imperative, known as the Formula of Universal Law (FUL), is generally thought to demand that one act only on maxims that one can will as universal laws without this generating a contradiction. Kant's view is standardly summarized as requiring the 'universalizability' of one's maxims and described in terms of the distinction between 'contradictions in conception' and 'contradictions in the will'. Focusing on the underappreciated significance of the simultaneity condition included in the FUL, I argue, by contrast, that the principle is better read as requiring that one be able to will two things simultaneously without self-contradiction, namely, that a maxim be one's own and that it be a universal law. This amounts to a new interpretation of the FUL with significant interpretive and philosophical advantages.
- Subjects
CATEGORICAL imperative (Ethics); MAXIMS; EPIGRAM; QUOTATIONS; PROVERBS
- Publication
Kant-Studien, 2017, Vol 108, Issue 1, p89
- ISSN
0022-8877
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/kant-2017-0006