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Ethics and Values / Unit 5   Ethics 206 short lesson, about 20 seconds

The Lying Promise Fails the Test

Captions available

The idea

A maxim of making false promises when convenient cannot be willed as universal law: universalized, promising itself collapses, and the maxim destroys its own tool.

In practice

Will a world where everyone lies for loans. In that world nobody lends on a promise — so the lying promiser's plan cannot even be stated.

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