poqwku
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How exactly does this answer the question?
The set of non-ethical categorical imperatives is non-empty.
I agree. Epistemic imperatives are categorical, but non-empty.
The set of non-ethical hypothetical imperatives is non-empty. Hypothetical imperatives include instrumental rules, you have to use X to achieve Y, game-laying rules, etc.
Right, those are examples where non-ethical hypothetical imperatives often show up.
So how does this add up to a reason to think there is a case against categorical imperatives that doesn't equally well count against hypothetical imperatives?
I don't think so. You ought to use a hammer to drive in nails even if you don't want to dive in nails. Anyone who is playing chess should move the bishop diagonally.That doesn't mean you are playing chess.
Again, you're assuming that the rule 'if you're driving in nails, use a hammer' is worth following, and that the rule 'if you're playing chess, move bishops diagonally' is worth following. A nihilist would reject both of those rules as having any normative authority, and say that just because a game has rules it doesn't mean that game-players ought to follow those rules, at most it means that lots and lots of rule-violations make the game go away.
I think you must be mistaken about categorical imperatives and ends.
In the Groundwork, Kant deems rational nature ('humanity' in us) to be an end in itself which can ground a categorical imperative, in the 2nd Critique, he deems the highest good (happiness in proportion to virtue) to be a necessary end of practical reason, and in the Metaphysics of Morals, he deems one's own perfection and the happiness of others to be ends that are also duties. For Kant, the categorical imperative of morality is directed at ends, but it is not a mere hypothetical imperative grounded in subjective ends.
And leaving Kant aside, plenty of moral systems aspiring to categorical force have... (read more)
I take it you want to reduce a hypothetical imperative like "If you want to stretch, then you ought to stand" into a physically-kosher causal claim like "standing is causally necessary for satisfying your desire to stretch". Now, I'm skeptical about this reduction, simply because I don't see how a mere causal claim could provide any normative direction whatsoever. But in any case, it seems that you could equally well reduce a categorical imperative like "Regardless of what you personally want, if you are the only one around a drowning child, then you ought to help save it from drowning" into a physically-kosher causal claim like "your help is causally necessary for... (read more)
Hypothetical "ought" statements do not require any special metaphysical apparatus to explain them, they just require rules and payoffs. Categorical imperatives are another story.
Rules and payoffs explain "ought" statements only if you assume that the rules are worth following and the payoffs worth pursuing. But if hypothetical imperatives can help themselves to such assumptions (assuming e.g. that one's own desires ought to be satisfied), then categorical imperatives can help themselves to such assumptions (assuming e.g. that everyone's desires ought to be satisfied, or that everyone's happiness ought to be maximized, or that everyone ought to develop certain character traits).
What reasons are there for doubting the existence of categorical imperatives that do not equally count against the existence of hypothetical imperatives? I can understand rejecting both, I can understand accepting both, but I can't understand treating them differently.
Perhaps so, but then the normativity stems from premise 1, leaving premise 2 as non-normative as ever. But the question is whether premise 2 could be a plausible reduction basis for normative claims.
Well, I'll acknowledge that you could change premise 2 into an inference rule. But notice that you could change either premise 2—the pro-desire-satisfaction one and the pro-desire-frustration one—into an inference rule. Indeed, you could change any normative claim into an inference rule: you could change "people who want to have gay sex ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured" into an inference rule, and then validly go from "I want to have gay sex" to "I ought to go see a trained Baptist minister to get cured". So from the fact that premise 2 could be changed into an inference rule, I don't think anything follows that... (read more)
I don't think hypothetical imperatives can be reduced. The if-ought of a hypothetical imperative is a full-blooded normative claim. But you can't reduce that to a simple if-then about cause and effect.
To see why, consider a nihilist about oughts. She recognizes the causal connections between calorie consumption/burning and weight loss. But she doesn't accept any claim about what people ought to do, even hypothetical imperatives about people who desire weight loss. This seems perfectly coherent: she accepts causal claims, but not normative claims, and there's no contradiction or incoherence there. But this means the causal claims she accepts are not conceptually equivalent to the normative claims she rejects.
For another way to see... (read more)
So, on your use of 'end', an 'end' cannot be objective and unconditional? I think that's a highly uncommon use of the term.
But if you go this way, it seems like it's less of a reduction of 'ought' and more of a misinterpretation, like reducing 'Santa Claus'-talk into talk about Christmas cheer, or 'God'-talk into talk of love.
After all, one important constraint on any interpretation of any 'ought to X' is that it should be positive towards X as opposed to negative or neutral, in favor of some action or attitude as opposed to against it or indifferent. But a mere predictive causal claim doesn't have any valence at all: it's just... (read more)