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Is Kant's categorical imperative applicable to Q&A sites like Codidact? Question
On sites like Codidact, the question often arises about what rules should be imposed on user behavior. What is a good question? What is a good answer? What behaviors are desirable and which are not? The debates rage on for decades on this site and beyond, partly because all users have subtly different goals when using this site, and wish to support rule framework that align with those goals.
Kant laid out a principle for judging the morality of an act, which I think comes down to: "If everybody acted this way, would you be happy with the result?"
Can this be applied to reasoning about rules on a site like Codidact? Is it rational to ask, "if everyone asked this type of question, what sort of site would we have" as the main way of deciding on what the rules should be? What are the challenges in using the categorical imperative in this way?
I am deliberately asking in the philosophy section, not meta. This is because I am more interested in a discussion of the philosophical aspects with other users interested in philosophy, rather than the actual positions of the site admins.
1 answer
I think the categorical imperative is often trivialized as “basically the age-old adage of ‘the Golden Rule’”, whereas it is a more nuanced idea, especially in the context of related philosophical theories. Pending further study, I myself would not really know what it is about, and I would honestly rather remove the Kant reference from your question, and make use of your own principle.
I think you are asking about analyzing how criteria placed on the local level (of questions themselves) magnify to the experienced quality of the entire site, as a user, on the global level. That’s a perfectly decent question to ask. I suggest we study the question systematically, using computer modeling, if possible.
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