I understood Kant like this; say you owned a candy shop. Lil Billy comes in with a five-dollar bill (this is in the twenties; five bucks was alot back then, so, imagine, fifty bucks nowadays) and says "Gimmie all the candy I can get for this". Now, you know Billy has a sweet tooth, but you also know the kid is gonna get sick if he eats five bucks worth of candy.
by the universal maxims, do you, a) sell him the candy, knowing it'll give him a stomach ache, and knowing he'll possibly never buy that much canyd ever again, teaching him a valuable life lesson. Or do you b) sell him only a dollar's worht of candy, and go tell him to spend the rest on his family? both are 'correct' and have consequences, but which one is better is still disputable.
still, these kids that get lied to about dead friends; If I was one of those kids, I'd immediately go out and get hammered; a) to spite those in authority in order to make the statement "If you're gonna lie to me, I'm going to the opposite of what you want me to do out of spite for you lying to me," b) to tell those in power "you cannot ever tell me what I am to do, ever, for I am me, and you are not I."
by the universal maxims, do you, a) sell him the candy, knowing it'll give him a stomach ache, and knowing he'll possibly never buy that much canyd ever again, teaching him a valuable life lesson. Or do you b) sell him only a dollar's worht of candy, and go tell him to spend the rest on his family? both are 'correct' and have consequences, but which one is better is still disputable.
still, these kids that get lied to about dead friends; If I was one of those kids, I'd immediately go out and get hammered; a) to spite those in authority in order to make the statement "If you're gonna lie to me, I'm going to the opposite of what you want me to do out of spite for you lying to me," b) to tell those in power "you cannot ever tell me what I am to do, ever, for I am me, and you are not I."
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