Academic

Chappell on Korsgaard on Kant on Inquiring Murderers

By Lawrence Solum

Suppose a Nazi knocks at your door, asking whether the fellow peeking out of your upstairs window is a Jew. (He is.) Is it okay to lie to such inquiring murderers? Kant notoriously insisted that you must never lie. Korsgaard, recognizing the absurdity of this claim, tries to show that a Kantian may lie to deceivers (compatibly with the Formula of Universal Law). But, as we'll see, this only helps with some versions of the 'inquiring murderer' case. There's an important class of cases where Korsgaard seems committed to the same absurd response as Kant.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 10, 2010 (boomark / email).