Some good points are made, but the concept of mutual love needs unpacking, and this is not achieved with the example.
The whole axe-murderer example was Kant’s and he used it as a basis for discussion/defense of his categorical imperative – you should not lie. Kant understood that for a theory to stand up, you need to test it against the hard cases – eg. its counter-intuitive and seems abhorrent to say “you should not lie to an axe-murderer even if it results in your friend’s death”, so Kant has to be persuasive to convince you of his proposition.
For the same reason that the axe-murderer is a good example for Kant, it is a bad example for the “mutual love” theory, because it is not a “hard case”. It is easy to see that your love for your friend would result in you lying to save your friend – everyone tends to agree with that. I’m not saying the “mutual love” theory is wrong, I am just saying that it needs rigorous testing against hard practical cases to determine what it means.
that is, in the words of somebody recently at my blog, ‘worthwhile’.
One of the authors is also a fantastically nice person who sends me Audrey Hepburn postcards in the mail.
Some good points are made, but the concept of mutual love needs unpacking, and this is not achieved with the example.
The whole axe-murderer example was Kant’s and he used it as a basis for discussion/defense of his categorical imperative – you should not lie. Kant understood that for a theory to stand up, you need to test it against the hard cases – eg. its counter-intuitive and seems abhorrent to say “you should not lie to an axe-murderer even if it results in your friend’s death”, so Kant has to be persuasive to convince you of his proposition.
For the same reason that the axe-murderer is a good example for Kant, it is a bad example for the “mutual love” theory, because it is not a “hard case”. It is easy to see that your love for your friend would result in you lying to save your friend – everyone tends to agree with that. I’m not saying the “mutual love” theory is wrong, I am just saying that it needs rigorous testing against hard practical cases to determine what it means.
There is space to post such comments on the actual site of the article; the authors may be interested in reading them.
I would, but I am afraid of people who I don’t know, especially when I am being critical. But I might as well post it there as well