The Categorical Imperative Against Lying and Its Permissible Violations

Abstract Immanuel Kant maintains that lying is always impermissible, since moral norms are categorical imperatives that admit of no exceptions. Yet this strict position conflicts with a widely shared intuition that lying may be permissible in certain exceptional cases. This article develops a revisionary Kantian proposal that accommodates this intuition while preserving the categorical character of moral norms. Central to this proposal is a default-and-exemption account of moral responsibility: The prohibition on lying applies universally, making agents morally responsible by default. This default condition, however, may be overridden if justifiable reasons for exemption exist.