For the love of Kant!

Let’s go ahead and address the mastodon in the room- I adore Immanuel Kant. So much so that I have a cute finger puppet of him that stays on my fridge thanks to the magnet in his oversized head. The problem with him and school is that teachers always latch onto ONE thing he said, in passing mind you, and so he’s cast aside like the idealistic reject he kinda is.

I imagine the conversation that pigeon-holed him so went something like this:

Uppity college student: “So, what you’re saying Mr. Kant is that if I say that lying is a universal rule thing…”

Super Smart Professor: “Maxim.” ::cough, stupid student, cough::

Uppity college student: “Sure, so if lying is a universal maxim, and it is destructive to society, we can never lie?”

Super Smart Professor: “Right, but it’s deeper than that. We deem “lying for personal benefit” to create a contradiction in society so we would have to consider “no lying” as a universal maxim, or law…”

Uppity college student: “Whatever, so like, if a bad-killer man came into your house and asked where your wife was so he could like, murder her, you wouldn’t lie.”

Super Smart Professor: “Right, but remember that we haven’t yet deemed this a “universal maxim” and we’re only talking in simple terms so your little head will understand it.”

Uppity college student: “AHHH! Professor Kant wants to kill his wife! I heard him say so!”

End scene

Kant was correct in that if “lying” became a universal maxim that we adhere to not do, then we should never do it, under any circumstances. But we are never under any rule to make such a maxim. In fact I would suggest that such a rule would at some point contradict itself and be detrimental to society and thus couldn’t ever be a maxim. But I digress.

What I find truly favorable in Kant is his second categorical imperative which states that we are never able to treat humanity as a means to an end, as it is only an end. To do so would be a contradiction to self and to the good will that is intrinsic to humans.

In the media industry this should be posted in bold letters with a yellow accent across every door. Even if the person signs a waver they are still being exploited for being a terrible mom, or an orange alien from New Jersey. There are levels of exploitation that the industry needs consider. At what point does ethics get in the way with a profitable business practice few complain about? But, how is it not exploitation when people are being filmed for entertainment purposes that lead to advertising money? “The Real World,” has long strayed from a relevant anthropological discourse of rambling 20-somethings.

Also, when will public relations, marketing and advertising step up and recognize that exploiting the ignorance of publics is just as bad? When disclosure has loopholes and fine print we begin to manipulate knowledge that the public has a right to know. We are treating their ignorance as a mean to our end goal of whatever corporate objective being focused on.

This is not right.

"Let justice reign even if all the rascals in the world should perish from it." Immanuel Kant in Perpetual Peace, 1795.