I've always been fond of Kant's intensely logical approach to ethics that culminates in his categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."
That's pretty dense text, so let me illustrate it with probably the most famous example, his stand on lying.
Suppose you're in a situation where you might be considering telling a lie. Say, for example, you're applying for a loan, and the applications asks you to state your annual income. You know that if you put down anything less than $50,000 a year, you will be refused the loan. You also know you only make $42,000 a year. So the only way you can get this loan is if you lie about your current income.
Now, applying Kant's categorical imperative means that you should be able to wish that everyone in your situation would act exactly as you would. If you decide that you should lie on the loan application, then you're deciding that everyone ought to lie when it's the only way to get the loan. But that would mean that the loan officer would expect people to lie, and thus know that she couldn't rely on the information on the application form. And this, of course, would completely defeat the purpose of lying in the first place. Thus, you cannot rationally lie on the form while wishing that everyone else would do the same thing in your situation. You end up having to either accept that you have a moral duty not to lie, or come up with some special rule that only applies to you and nobody else. And while lots of people do indeed think they're just that special, it's kind of hard to get the rest of us to agree on who that one special exempt person should be. (And, in the case of lying, it still won't work because you need your status as the one special person to be a secret, or again, no one will believe what you say.)
Well, there's a very similar logic to the issue of carrying guns for self-defense. Just yesterday I saw (again) one of those "share if you agree!" memes urging for Canada's laws to be revised to allow people to carry concealed firearms to protect themselves. And sure, at first glance, that seems like a reasonable thing to want. If you're afraid some random stranger might attack you, naturally you're going to want to be able to arm yourself.
But what happens if you apply the categorical imperative here? You, in arming yourself against random strangers, must also wish that everyone else should arm themselves against random strangers who might attack them. And bear in mind: to them, you are one of those random strangers who might attack them.
I often hear from gun advocates that we shouldn't be afraid of them being armed because obviously law-abiding citizens aren't going to shoot you if you don't attack them first. And yet, their argument for going around armed is based on a fear that they will be attacked by a random stranger they didn't attack first.
The rule cannot be universalized. At some point they have to resort to special pleading. Their fear of random strangers is rational enough to warrant getting a gun, but our fear of random strangers is not rational enough to warrant prohibiting them from getting a gun. The problem is that there is no principled way to distinguish between good guys who just want to defend themselves and any other random stranger.
In short, if you can't trust me not to attack you, why should I trust you not to attack me?
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