On Fri, 19 Jul 1996, Luke A. Reimer wrote:
> I don't think the golden rule was ever intended to be taken
> independently of the rest of scripture and made to stand on
> its own in the way you have demanded. But as long as you
> have mentioned Kant's Categorical Imperitive, I would like to
> see how it escapes absurdity in the cases you presented.
> Having come across this Categorical Imperitive in your
> discussion of Beale, I cannot anticipate your particular defence
> of it here. Will you help me?
>
>
DOUG
An important facet of the categorical imperative is that, Kant argues, it implies that one cannot morally treat someone else as a means as opposed to an end. In fact, Kant even suggested that this can be a restatement of the categorical imperative, but scholars tend to agree that Kant exaggerated on this point. This treating others as an end and not as a means means that one cannot universalize using others for one's own gain at the other person's expense.
Note, by the way, that the Golden Rule only applies of two or more people are interacting. Thus, suicide and other things which can be done alone are not in any way covered by the Golden Rule. On the other hand, Kant's CI, he argues, rules out suicide because it is not respecting oneself as an end. Because of that, it cannot be universalized.
By the way, I stopped corresponding with Beale and Nanson because they refused to discuss their claim that they could show that Kant's moral theory was either (a) circular, or (b) based on religion. When I sent them a long, long explanation of some of the quotations from Kant which they had been using, they refused to discuss (a) or (b) again and started concentrating on (c) the claim that Kant's moral theory is unsatisfactory or inadequate. Because they would rather change the issue than admit defeat, and since there is an indefinite number of other topics which they could, again, switch to instead of admitting defeat, I refused to discuss (c) until they conceded that they had not shown (a) or (b). Then they stopped trying to change the subject and did not correspond with me anymore.
One last point: Beale kept claiming that Kant's view could allow one to do anything one wished, and he said that this showed that Kant's view is circular. To this I say the following:
1) Even if it were true that Kant's view allows one to justify anything one wishes, this would NOT make it circular. Beale just betrays here that he does not even know what it is for a position to be circular. Perhaps that is why he tried to avoid the issue.
2) On Kant's view, if one acts on a maxim in order to justify something which one wants to do, that action CANNOT be a moral action. For Kant, reason alone gives ethics its force, its motivation. If you perform an action because you want to do it, then it cannot be a moral action. 3) Because the maxim "I will act on those maxims which exempt me from what would otherwise be my moral duty if I were not singled out" cannot be universalized (because then it would be self-contradictory to adhere to a moral law and allow everyone to be exempt from a moral law), Beale's assertion that one could exempt oneself from one's moral duty and get away with stealing, etc. is just nonsense.
But (1)-(3) above address issue (c). Beale and Nanson, the Laurel and Hardy of inerrancy, tucked tail and ran when they saw that they had made boasts that they could not make good on.