Ricerc@Sapienza

It is well known, that the in text On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy Kant holds that lying is always morally wrong. In this essay I try to demonstrate the paradoxical thesis that it is possible and maybe even necessary to contest this view by arguing exactly from the main premises of Kantʼs moral philosophy: In Kantian terms, the thesis of the text On a Supposed Right… is false. The so-called Kantian formalism relies on the criterium of the universalization of the maxim, but this criterium implies the need to always consider circumstances. It is in fact impossible to have a Typic of the Moral Judgement, that means that it is impossible to build a “bridge” between the form and the matter in moral actions: therefore, the problem of the moral judgement is always grounded, in Kantian terms, in the problem of finding an adequate maxim to describe the situation that has to be judged. Describinga matter of fact in universal terms compels to prefer and underline only some circumstances that characterize a situation. Moreover, the criterium of universalizing the maxim necessarily presupposes the plurality of subjects, so that the duty of sincerity must be reconducted to the duties towards the others and not towards oneself. The others are a transcendental condition of possibility of the moral law, so that an application of the moral law that would harm the others to preserve oneselfʼs dignity would be
a contradiction.