Reference no: EM133545549

Immanual Kant famously argued that lying is always wrong. After reading his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Benjamin Constant challenged Kant's argument. Although he understood the tests of the Categorical Imperative, such as Humanity and Universalism, and how they would ground this claim, there was something that seemed not right about it. It's an extreme claim, he thought. So he wrote an article challenging Kant's claim in the following way (which I am modernizing here).

Suppose, he wrote, that you were sitting at home watching Netflix and your roommate is upstairs taking a nap. Suddenly there's a frantic and loud knock on the door. You open the door to see a large man with a gun. "Where's your roommate!" he demands, "I am going to kill him!" You've just read Kant's moral theory and really loved his ideas of how to test your maxims. So you tell the man that your roommate is upstairs taking a nap.

Constant argued that in a case like this, it seems that Kant's view fails. Surely, the right thing to do is lie. What moral theory can be used to justify lying in this case? How might Kant respond to this claim? How might he justify his stance even though it MAY be that following his view results in the death of your roommate. Although, to be honest, it MAY NOT have that consequence.