Best asked:

1) Suggest two moral maxims which would give rise to contradictory actions. How might the
differences between these be resolved?

2) Could it ever be morally right, according to Kant, to torture one person in order to get information
which would save the lives of a large group?

3) What place does God have in Kant's moral philosophy?

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1) For Kant, the most challenging case that gives rise to two maxims that are contradictory is 'The
Case of the Inquiring Murderer.' Imagine that a friend of yours is being chased by a murderer. She
comes to your door and tells you about this situation, then proceeds to hide. You know where she
hides. A little while later, the murderer comes to your door and asks you where she is. What should
you do?

According to Kant, you are rationally bound to uphold the maxim 'Do not lie.' Yet, at the same time,
you are also bound to any maxim that prohibits murder or participating in it. It would seem that by
telling the truth you would be acting in such a way that ends in the death of another human being. If
you lie, you have acted in such a way that undermines truth telling universally, which was Kant's
condition for rejecting a maxim.

Kant himself defends the idea that in this difficult case you should not lie. You cannot know the future,
all the variables involved, and above all, morality is not a matter of considering the consequences of
actions. In choosing to lie, you would be considering the consequences, which is precisely what his
moral view (deontology) prohibits as entering into consideration of the moral worth of an action.

Many people have found that, intuitively, they believe they would lie to save someone's life. Deepa
Metha's film, 'Earth,' contains a wonderful depiction of this Kantian case (at the very end of the film). It
might be worthwhile to take a look at this film and then think about how you feel about the ending and
what you believe the right thing to do is.

The solution to this dilemma (a scenario in which both outcomes are unsatisfactory) would be
creating a principled way to rank or prioritize moral maxims. That is to say, develop a rule that
indicates, for example, that preserving life trumps the maxim against lying. Another possible road to
take is to further specify the contents of maxims. This is to say that it may be possible to universalize
a maxim, 'If a crazed murderer comes to the door looking to harm someone, lie about his or her
whereabouts.' The problem with this sort of solution is that it seems that in any moral situation we
might be able to tinker with maxims so that everyone, if they stood in our exact same shoes, would do
as we do. In the end, all that does is justify any moral decision we make based on our own case.

2) The answer is no, at least given the way that you've posed the question. The telling words are 'in
order to get' that bar moral justification in this case. Utilitarians (consequentialists) could claim that
such an act is morally justified, given that they hold the principle of utility: Actions or rules are morally
right if they promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. For a deontologist like Kant,
consequences cannot be taken into consideration in moral justification. To pose this in a different
manner, it is always wrong, according to Kant, to use a human being as a means to an end for any
reason. Every human being must be treated as an 'end' in his or her self — a being with the capacity
to reason and arrive at their own moral judgments. A Kantian would not be able to morally justify
torturing a person to save the lives of others. The only option open is persuading that person that it is
wrong to kill others and one is obligated to protect their lives.

3) Although it appears that, through the categorical imperative(s), human beings are able to make
moral judgments independently of any given conception of God, when we engage in moral thinking
we are not approaching the world as we do scientifically. While the scientist confronts the world in
order to gain knowledge of the mechanical (causal) laws at work within it, a physical world devoid of
"free will," from a moral point of view we approach the world with respect to moral value. Within this
way of conceiving the world, it is not mechanical laws that we try to determine, but the question of
right and wrong and of our free will to act in one way or another. From the moral point of view, we
encounter the world as a 'kingdom of ends' — a world in which God has created rational beings
capable of understanding what is right and wrong and employing free will. Thus, God, who appears to
have no place in the scientifically understood world, has a very meaningful place in the world
approached from a moral point of view.

Maureen Eckert