The categorical imperative (German: Kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, it may be defined as a way of evaluating motivations for action.
According to Kant, human beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in one ultimate commandment of reason, or imperative, from which all duties and obligations derive. He defined an imperative as any proposition declaring a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary.
I guess the shooter decided that it was necessary to shoot the other guy.
If that is an accurate description of Kant's philosophy of morality, I just can't see why anybody would respect it.
If some group of people propose an action to be "necessary", then that seems to just be his way of saying that some people are declaring it to be the right thing to do. Presumably he does not mean "necessary" in the usual sense that people actually always do the action...but that it is "morally necessary" even if people sometimes do not take such actions. So why doesn't he just say that the things that are good to do are the things people consider good to do?
Also different groups of people might come to different conclusions of what actions are "necessary". Does this mean that any differing view is moral? And how many people need to have this view to construct an independent morality? How about one crazed murderer? Does it take a while lot of Nazis? Under his view, can we call what the murderer did or the Nazis did wrong when the slaughtered innocents when they thought it was "necessary"?
Give me the natural law view of Locke anytime.
“I guess the shooter decided that it was necessary to shoot the other guy.”
Yes, it was the moral thing to do, according to Kant. Some people just need killing. Next time, the shooter should use a larger calibre, it carries greater moral authority. /s