I agree that his argument is that the specific action can’t be understood as a universal law, but the idea of how we go about translating specific actions into universal laws to me seems to implicitly depend upon the idea that “this guy’s lie is a case of some more general act ‘lying’”. I don’t understand what universal law Kant is rejecting if not the universal law of lying.
I don’t think your description is off the mark, but I do think this sets it apart from the worst argument in the world. if Kant were making the worst argument in the world, his claim would be that this man’s action is a lie, and that because some lies are bad or contradictory, this lie must be as well. But Kant doesn’t appeal to 1) a general action type, or 2) any other particular cases of actions similar to this one.
I take (2) to be obvious from the text, so I’ll just defend (1). The maxim of an action is not a general action type, but the law or rule of which some action is a case. So we have three things: the particular case of lying, the general action-type of lying, and the rule of which this particular case is a case. It may (or may not) be true that all cases of lying, and thus the action-type as a whole, fall under the same rule that this particular case falls under. This wouldn’t matter to Kant’s argument, since he only appeals to the rule under which this particular action falls. Notice that the maxim described in his argument doesn’t come close to being a rule for all cases of lying. It’s only intended to be a rule for this specific case.
I think that you think that Kant thinks that action-types are defined by maxims, such that a lie is wrong because it falls under the action-type ‘lying’ which is defined by such and such a maxim. But this can’t be right, because Kant’s whole point is that the lie he’s discussing, on reflection, simply has no maxim. It only seems to. Thus it cannot be the result of reason alone, and we can only explain the action in terms of a heteronomous will (a will governed by many conflicting interests, which he goes on to discuss at the end of chapter 2 and 3). So even if action types were defined by maxims, there wouldn’t be an action type for lying to fall under, because it has no maxim.
I don’t think your description is off the mark, but I do think this sets it apart from the worst argument in the world. if Kant were making the worst argument in the world, his claim would be that this man’s action is a lie, and that because some lies are bad or contradictory, this lie must be as well. But Kant doesn’t appeal to 1) a general action type, or 2) any other particular cases of actions similar to this one.
I take (2) to be obvious from the text, so I’ll just defend (1). The maxim of an action is not a general action type, but the law or rule of which some action is a case. So we have three things: the particular case of lying, the general action-type of lying, and the rule of which this particular case is a case. It may (or may not) be true that all cases of lying, and thus the action-type as a whole, fall under the same rule that this particular case falls under. This wouldn’t matter to Kant’s argument, since he only appeals to the rule under which this particular action falls. Notice that the maxim described in his argument doesn’t come close to being a rule for all cases of lying. It’s only intended to be a rule for this specific case.
I think that you think that Kant thinks that action-types are defined by maxims, such that a lie is wrong because it falls under the action-type ‘lying’ which is defined by such and such a maxim. But this can’t be right, because Kant’s whole point is that the lie he’s discussing, on reflection, simply has no maxim. It only seems to. Thus it cannot be the result of reason alone, and we can only explain the action in terms of a heteronomous will (a will governed by many conflicting interests, which he goes on to discuss at the end of chapter 2 and 3). So even if action types were defined by maxims, there wouldn’t be an action type for lying to fall under, because it has no maxim.
Okay, I misinterpreted Kant, thanks for the correction!
Thanks for the interesting discussion.