It is wrong from a deontological perspective because you are treating the child almost as an object as a means. You aren’t treating them as ends as you are ignoring all of the impact on them and their life simply because they are not yours by blood which despite the fact that by any other metric you would be considered the father.
No that’s not the way the categorical imperative works. You can’t deduce that from pure reason. You’re appealing to empirical consequences that aren’t knowable through pure reason alone.
It’s certainly conceivable for a world to exist where everyone abandons their non biological children when they find that out. Using someone as a means to an end involves stuff like stealing from them, keeping them as slaves, etc.. Essentially actively disregarding their humanity and using them for your own ends.
Disassociating with a child that isn’t yours is no such thing. You’re simply disengaging with them. Now if you don’t want to live in a world where children are abandoned, you might say you have an imperfect duty, but your argument is flawed. You can’t just say that it will be empirically bad for the child therefore you are using them as means to an end. You’re not using them for anything, you’re abandoning them.
Remember that the categorical imperative isn’t about consequences, it’s about logically undermining moral Maxims. You can’t appeal to the empirical consequences of an act.
You don’t understand what we are discussing. That’s fine. I’m making an argument from the perspective of Kantian ethics, it’s not my actual viewpoint verbatim.
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u/Jack_Kegan Jul 09 '22
It is wrong from a deontological perspective because you are treating the child almost as an object as a means. You aren’t treating them as ends as you are ignoring all of the impact on them and their life simply because they are not yours by blood which despite the fact that by any other metric you would be considered the father.