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Categorical imperative or self-defeating test
| Step One |
Formulate your maxim |
I can tell a lie to escape a difficulty |
| Step Two |
Universalize your maxim |
Everyone can tell a lie to escape a difficulty. |
| Step Three |
Ask the question:
Is the universalized maxim self-defeating |
What if everyone told a lie when they were in a difficulty? To escape from the difficulty, the lie would have to be believable. But nobody would believe a lie in a world where telling lies was the universal law. |
Self-defeating test applied to copying an exam
- Consider another example.
- Suppose you are tempted to copy the answers for your exam from your neighbor's paper.
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What is the maxim?
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Universalize the maxim.
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Is it self-defeating when universalized?
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Hint: Think of the world in which copying is universalized as a room where everybody sits at desks arranged in a circle. You copy from your neighbor, your neighbor from her neighbor, and so on. Now, given this arrangement, is it is self-defeating?
These basic tenants of deontology make it possible to understand basic rights and duties as measures taken to recognize and respect autonomy.
- Definition: A
right is an essential capacity of action that others are obliged to recognize and respect. "Essential" here is understood as necessary for the exercise of autonomy.
- A right claim is legitimate if it protects a capacity of action that is
(a) essential to autonomy,
(b) vulnerable to a standard threat, and that (c) it's recognition and respect does not deprive others of something essential (
feasible ).
- A
duty is a principle or rule that obliges individuals to recognize and respect one another's rights.
- Duties sort themselves out into three levels: (a) the most basic duties are those not to deprive others of their rights; (b) intermediate duties create obligations to prevent right deprivations; (c) the highest duty level lies in the obligation (most often social rather than individual) to aid those who have been deprived of their rights.
- Rights and duties are
correlative . This means that my rights impose on others the correlative duties to recognize and respect them. And I have correlative duties to recognize and respect the rights of others. The extent of the correlative duties we impose on ourselves and others is limited by feasibility; your rights claims over me do not extend to the point where they deprive me of something essential.
The following rights claims have been asserted by engineers against the business organizations for which they work. (these claims quoted directly from bill baker, engineering ethics: an overview. claims form a "bill of rights" set forth by murray a. muspratt of chisholm institute of technology, victoria, australia (american society of civil engineers' journal of professional issues in engineering, october 1985)
- "The right to act in according to ethical conscience and to decline assignments where a variance of moral opinion exists.
- The right to express professional judgment, and to make public pronouncements that are consistent with corporate constraints on proprietary information.
- The right to corporate loyalty and freedom from being made a scapegoat for natural catastrophes, administrative ineptitude or other forces beyond the engineer's control.
- The right to seek self-improvement by further education and involvement in professional associations.
- The right to participate in political party activities outside of working hours.
- The right to apply for superior positions with other companies without being blacklisted.
- The right to due process and freedom from arbitrary penalties or dismissal.
- The right to appeal for ethical review by a professional association, ombudsman or independent arbitrator.
Source:
OpenStax, Engineering ethics modules for ethics across the curriculum. OpenStax CNX. Oct 08, 2012 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10552/1.3
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