Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative states that one should “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, one should only do actions that he/she wishes the entirety of humanity would also do. Kant uses this categorical imperative in his refutation of French philosopher Benjamin Constant when Constant writes in On Political Reactions that to say one should always tell the truth in order to be moral is impossible. Kant responds in On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns that Constant is mistaken and that to lie is in fact always immoral because it destroys honesty and insinuates further lying, which is not something humans should will to be a universal law. Kant argues that it would be immoral to lie to a murderer at a person’s door who wanted to kill the friend that person was hiding.

I agree with Kant’s categorical imperative; I disagree with such a generalized approach to it (As in, “To lie is always immoral” appears too generalized). Let us consider a slightly alternative way to frame morality that may shed light on this distinction. Morality in some sense must involve empathy–to judge an act as moral, one must empathize with the multiple parties involved with the act. Through this empathy, one can begin to understand a different definition of morality: morality as self-sacrifice. Morality is putting another being before one’s self. If there was only one living being on Earth, there would be no need for morality.¹ Therefore, to act morally always involves another being. It is the sacrifice of one’s self for the good of that other being that is morality. This focus on empathy and self-sacrifice can hopefully allow for a more nuanced understanding of moral vs immoral actions.

Now let us consider Kant and Constant’s debate about the morality of lying to the murderer at your door who wants to kill your friend. Kant says lying here is immoral, while Constant disagrees. I argue that in order to protect your friend from evil, you lie and thus sacrifice yourself to carry the burden of the lie, so your friend may live. But why not put the murderer first? How do you determine to put your hunted friend first? One puts the friend first because the murderer is attempting to break the moral code by instead sacrificing someone else for his/her own ends, instead of seeing that the friend is also a person with means and ends (as Kant suggests we must in On a Supposed Right…). The murderer seeks to sacrifice another instead of self-sacrificing. The murderer would terminate your friend’s ability to ever achieve his or her own “ends.” By lying to the murderer, you save your friend and allow the murderer the opportunity to maintain his/her personhood and personal ends as well. The murderer, thus, at least for that moment, remains within the human moral code and is not cast out with the savages (like Kohlhaas in Kleist’s famous tale of the perils of justice, Michael Kohlhaas). It is because of this confluence of consequences that lying to the murderer is the moral action in this situation and that to be moral involves a sacrifice of the self for the good of another.

¹ [But what about God?] Morality is a code that humans follow to interact with humans, and some religions suggest that proper following of the moral code will lead to favor in God’s eye. However, one cannot act morally with God because God has no need for our moral actions like other earthly beings do.

-Charlie, August 2023