PHIL 2550 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Practical Reason, Rationality, Philippa Foot

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 2550
• Professor: Jason Millar

Document Summary

Imperative that lying is wrong: imperative: a command, an injunction, something ought to be done (ex: speed limit sign). Maybe via the fact that moral judgments are categorical imperatives: foot: rules of etiquette generate categorical imperatives and they lack any special dignity or necessity. The difficulty is, of course, to defend this proposition which is more often repeated than explained . Option 2: relative stringency of our moral punishments: foot: this is rather a debunking explanation, people tend to get more angry at moral violations rather then other violations. Option 3: moral norms express a must, not simply a should: foot: this does not refer to physical compulsion, not to mental compulsion, since there is no compulsion maybe there is a different option Conclusion: moral judgments have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than statements about matters of etiquette, why be moral, be your best self.