# Foot: Morality As A System Of Hypothetical Imperatives

**URL:** <https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/1401>\
**Category:** Ethics\
**Created:** [June 18, 2026, 10:38pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/1401 "2026-06-18T22:38:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 2:29pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/1401/6 "2026-06-19T14:29:35Z")

</div>

> [@Banno](#):
>
> Foot seems to be asserting that her man can agree that X is immoral, **continue to that one ought not to X** and yet still do X, and not be considered as being inconsistent.

I don’t think that’s quite it. She’s saying that the immoral man _doesn’t_ accept that “one ought not to X”:

> [@Banno](#):
>
> Foot: The fact is that the man who rejects morality because he sees no reason to obey its rules can be convicted of villainy but not of inconsistency.

In saying “he sees no reason to obey its rules,” I take her to be saying that the idea of “ought” makes no sense to him, or at least _for_ him. So, as she says, he isn’t being inconsistent.

Talking of inconsistency leads me to another comment about her starting point, which is very dismissive of Kant. She says:

> [M]any, for instance, agree in rejecting Kant’s derivation of duties from the mere form of law expressed in terms of a universally legislative will.

. . .and that’s the last we hear of it, at least so far. But in fact Kant’s version of what a categorical imperative might be is one of the few I’m aware of that deserve a close look. Kant _does_ say that it would be inconsistent for the amoral man to see that X is immoral yet do it anyway. However, his inconsistency is of a peculiar type. It is a _formal_ inconsistency, and Kant believes there are at least two types of contradiction involved. I don’t want to go into all that, because at the end of the day I don’t think there’s much force to the idea that “you should be moral because you contradict yourself if you aren’t.” I’m just pointing out that what Foot calls “mere form of law” is actually a strong and original attempt to forge the “is - ought” link.

Also, Kant made a big contribution to showing how ethics must involve universalizability. One may not agree that there could be such a thing as a categorical imperative, but the _content_ of what Kant believes such an imperative says – the “maxim for everybody” idea – is extremely important.

---

_[View the full topic](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/1401)._