It must be offered by a person and it must be a realtionship - or it can't be sustained. (So trust comes into the moral picture too).
It must have a single person behind it – as a source and a guarantor –or it becomes inconsistent and untenable.
Because only a person can trump systems, thoughts, urges, desires, reasons, bodies, cookies and Ferraris. And for morality to work, they all need to kneel. And not just any person - it cannot be someone that can be conceivably made part of the system.
Because only a person can trump systems, thoughts, urges, desires, reasons, bodies, cookies and Ferraris. And for morality to work, they all need to kneel. And not just any person - it cannot be someone that can be conceivably made part of the system.
The Categorical
Imperative is a postulate to get to know - more! to get to feel! - the Stuff an sich. Without the ultimate thruth - without the thrill of the ultimate truth - Kant's commandment remains an empty or unreliable formula:
how can I adopt a maxim as universal if I don’t know myself and others (and the
universe). I have observed that I keep changing, my understanding of myself keeps changing, others keep changing. (Not to mention the Universe; but this is irrelevant from the moral point of view). And if I’m bound to get people and things wrong, it makes just as much sense to give up and go out - chucking Morality away - on the tiles.
PS Which I'm just about to... no - just kidding. I'm quite thrilled.