@illusionslies I wish I could remember the buzz word. It’s something like not violating a person’s intrinsic humanness. So if by lying to someone you reduce their free will, that’s the part Kant objects to. You need to treat each individual how they would want to be treated (a subtle but key variant of the golden rule).
That’s it… I’m going to wikipedia. (Trailing footsteps…)
(... crescendo footsteps). And I’m back. Wow that’s dense. I didn’t find what I’m looking for.I hate defining things by what they’re not but someone in this thread pointed out earlier Kant was the opposite of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism would say you help the most number of people possible. Kant would say the welfare of each person you affect with a decision must be optimized. In practical application this would likely require their input. Utilitarianism would say “the ends justify the means”. Kant would say that if the means do not justify themselves, they are evil, no matter what the ends. They would categorically be evil. So Kant would never approve of the NSA or what it does, because their methods are categorically evil, even if their ends are (can be argued) pure.
I style myself a Kantian ethicist, mostly about the point that you can believe in utilitarian ethics, but as soon as you draw the short straw in that arrangement, you are likely to bray about how your rights have been violated.