Damon asked:

What are the main objections the Kant's categorical imperative?

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I don't know how to answer this. "The" objections? From whom? Well... I'll give you a couple of my
own. First, as Kant acknowledged, the general rule, "act as if you would will the maxim of your action
to be a universal law", does not, purposely, relate to any specific situation, i.e., has no "content" (a
technical term in Kant). But then all you're left with is a general rule... now what? In other words, how
do you apply the categorical imperative to, say, the assembly line in Ford Motors? Whoops... nothing
said about that in Kant.

Second, Kant arrives at this rule by explicitly accepting societal norms as the basis for ethics, and
then abstracting from them. Well, why do that? He says that since they're widely accepted, they must
have some truth to them. Ugh. I hate that kind of reasoning. The world had to be flat, by that
reasoning... the sun went around the earth, etc. So that's an even more general objection than the
above. I mean, for someone who called, early in his career, for "reformation" based on rationality to
then use the above reasoning as a principle for deriving an ethical rule just seems very strange to
me... not to mention being basically, as I see it, unjustifiable.

So, even given that you can get around the first objection, the second seems much more severe
anyway, and I don't see a way around that one, except for the obvious: "gee, you have to start
somewhere...". Well, sorry, but I think there are better ways to start. I'm in favor of naturalized ethics,
myself.

You might take a look at M. Johnson's Moral Imaginationfor more on this.

Steven Ravett Brown

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