Hattie considers capturing a stray cat, cooking it, and eating it for dinner. (H
Hattie considers capturing a stray cat, cooking it, and eating it for dinner. (Hattie is not starving; she’s just curious about whether cat tastes more like chicken or pork and wants to fix an exotic dish she can’t get in a local restaurant.) She talks with Lance about it, and he enjoys seeing that cat in the neighborhood yards and encourages Hattie not to kill it and eat it. Manny comes along. They know that he has studied philosophy, and in particular the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant, and so they ask him what Kant would say about the moral permissibility of Hattie’s plan. You play the part of Manny. Write an essay giving a Kantian analysis of the question of the moral permissibility of Hattie’s plan. That is to say, explain what a Kantian, such as Manny, would say about whether Hattie may eat the cat, and if so, under what circumstances — and what reasoning the Kantian would offer. First do this carefully for one formulation of the categorical imperative. Then do it for a different formulation of the categorical imperative. Note: For this assignment you need not use any materials apart from those in the class texts — indeed you are encouraged not to. However, no matter what sources of information you use — even the textbook — be sure to make adequate attribution (e.g. in footnotes). You are expected to do your own work. Use of unacknowledged sources (e.g., books, classmates, friends, tutors, mentors, web pages, other papers, AI bots) for this assignment constitutes cheating. (Any place an idea comes from is a source.) Save your paper as a document (.doc or .docx or .rtf or .pdf; not .pages) and upload it at the “Browse” prompt. The paper is due on Sunday, September 29, 2024.
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