Abstract
Analyse de la loi morale selon Kant, et en particulier de l'argument kantien selon lequel il y aurait contradiction chez un agent qui voudrait la realisation universelle d'une maxime immorale. L'A. distingue et analyse trois sortes de sens dans lesquels il y aurait une telle contradiction
Highlights
Kant specifies that the test is whether you could will the universalization for a system of nature "of which you yourself were a part" (C2 69/72); and in one place he characterizes the moral agent as asking "what sort of world he would create under the guidance of practical reason, . . . a world into which, he would place himself as a member."
Let us say that there is a teleological contradiction if we propose as a universal law that an certain organ, instinct, or action-type be used in a way that makes it less than the fittest and best device for achieving its natural purpose
He cites as evidence Kant's argument in the Critique of Practical Reason that self-love cannot be the basis of morality because it does not produce a harmony of purposes.(C2 28/27-28)
Summary
Some of Kant's defenders have tried to identify a contradiction of just the sort. Mill denies can be found. There is no question that much of Kant's language favors a Logical Contradiction Interpretation for the contradiction in conception test He says that universalizations of immoral maxims destroy themselves (G 403/19), annihilate themselves (C2 27/27), are inconceivable or cannot be thought, and so on. A man in financial difficulties considers "borrowing" money which he knows he can never repay Kant explains how this fails the contradiction in conception test this way:. We are imagining a world in which the agent and everyone with his purpose is making a certain sort of promise, and a world in which there is no such thing. If universalizing a maxim makes the action proposed inconceivable, we can get a logical contradiction
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