Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [80]
But many scholars find moral absolutism to be implausible. Kant was not unaware of such concerns. To bolster his position, he considers a dilemma involving a murderer looking for his next victim. Assume that a known murderer approaches you and inquires about the location of his next intended victim, an innocent neighbor of yours. Only moments ago, you saw your neighbor frantically enter the front door of his home. What should you do? Assuming no viable third alternative, should you lie to the murderer to protect the life of your innocent neighbor or report your neighbor’s location truthfully, knowing that this will undoubtedly get the innocent man killed? Kant was clear: morally speaking, you must answer the murderer truthfully, thereby disclosing the neighbor’s location. Your duty to tell the truth is absolute.6
The debate emerging here is not whether it’s ever permissible to lie for selfish or personal gain. Should Horton break his word to Mayzie simply to avoid the ribbing of his jungle friends, he acts impermissibly. Rather, worries about the moral absoluteness of honesty are grounded in situations when moral duties conflict. We have a duty to tell the truth and a duty to protect the lives of innocent people (insofar as we can), and in this Kant agrees. However, what should we do in situations where we must choose one over the other? All systems committed to moral absolutism, Kant’s included, are conceptually precarious because they seem ill equipped to reconcile such moral dilemmas. After all, imagine the following alteration to the lying murderer case. Assume that you had promised the neighbor that you would not disclose his location to anyone, but especially the sociopath chasing him. When the murderer inquires about your neighbor’s location, what should you do? Keep your promise to your neighbor or answer the murderer’s question honestly? Alternatively, let’s say that your other next-door neighbor performs a kindness to you and, out of gratitude, you promise to repay it whenever he needs it. Let’s further say that he requests you to repay the kindness by assassinating his professional rival. Horton is laudable for keeping his promise to Mayzie. But should you keep your promise and assassinate the rival? Doesn’t it seem just as plausible (if not more so) to break your word so as to not end the life of your neighbor’s rival?
The force of these questions speaks against Kant’s blanket insistence on truth-telling. Fortunately, many scholars also believe that Kant’s absolutism is unnecessary; his larger project of grounding moral duties in what rational agents can consistently will arguably remains intact.7 So long as the person pondering the exception to the rule can consistently accept that everyone act as he is considering, then his act is permissible. Nevertheless, this remains a bit contentious. It might be argued that qualified maxims, those about being honest with the built-in exception to save the life of innocent persons, become self-defeating if universalized. Insofar as murderers may no longer believe those they question, the maxims lose their efficacy. Yet, intuitively the alleged self-defeating result isn’t as obvious as lying to a bank manager to get a loan (that you never intend to pay back). Would the relevant maxim, if universalized, negate the intended purpose of attempting to nonviolently protect the life of an innocent? Furthermore, note that the agent is not making an exception for herself, which seems to be a staple to deeming maxims impermissible.
Without definitively resolving this debate, note