By distinguishing between two different levels of moral thinking, we see how utilitarian reasoning at the critical level—enlisting the impartial sympathy for others’ predicaments, which we must have if we fully understand them and universalize our preferences as morality requires—generates moral principles for use at the intuitive level, which square with common intuitions, e.g. about justice and rights. The reasoning itself depends on the logic of concepts, which all who ask moral questions are already using.
… the supreme end, the happiness of all mankind (Kr V A851/NKS 665).The law concerning punishment is a Categorical Imperative; and woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness, looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it (Rl. A196/B226, 6:331; Ladd, 100).
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