Morality: Where do you get yours?

[genkaus]

well he breaks it down like this:

there are two types of duty, those we must do and those we ought to. If we deny those we must do we are acting immorally and it would be MORE moral to do those we ought to than to not do them (for example, im not immoral for allowing people to hurt each other but i may be more moral if i can stop them without breaking any of the 'must' duties. Basically if i do stop it im better than if i dont).

This also leads to the categorical imperative:
universality- if it'd be ok for everyone to do it everytime they were in that situation it's probably okay
Autonomy- we must treat all people as 'ends and not means', so no manipulation of people ever.
Sapere aude- We must act from our own morality, not religious dogma or what other people think is right (kinda contradictory when you conisder he says we cant perform immoral acts but it still works.)

Ok, let's see them one by one.

The basis of categorical imperative is that "for a particular goal a particular action must be taken". For example, to quench thirst, you must drink. Kant appears to derive universality from this - basically saying that since these statements are true everywhere, the moral statements must be as well.

However, neither of that seems to be necessarily true. For example, generally, in order to survive, you must eat food. However, if the only food around you is poisonous, then in order to survive, you must not eat food. Thus, the argument that every moral action must stand the test of universality is not justified.

Another argument against universality would be that Kant considered morality to be derived from rationality, thus making it like science. Thus, his argument that an action taking place in one set of circumstances is moral if it is not contradictory to consider it taking place in every set of circumstances, is like saying, a reaction taking place under some conditions must also take place under all conditions. As we know, that's incorrect. The universality, if any, should be regarding a principle or a rule - not an action.

Next comes autonomy. This one I can get behind, but with same caveats as above. If another person is the "ends" and that end requires manipulation, then it would be contradictory not to manipulate.

Finally, we are not acting form our own morality if we simply accept his statements as true without judgment. Did he have anything to say about that?