Again, you are making a bizarre claim (that laws against murder do not constitute requirements that people should not commit murder) and provide nothing to back this up. You need to show that this is actually how laws are interpreted by the judiciary, not just give your own amateur legal opinion.
> Every conditional moral imperative...is an application of a general moral imperative (categorical imperative according to Kant).
That's not what I mean. I'm talking about a general moral imperative whose logical form is that of a conditional sentence. E.g. "If your society has laws, obey them." There is actually no such thing as a "conditional imperative" in Kant's system (were you thinking of hypothetical imperatives?) See the following (p. 293 first complete paragraph) for an explanation of why something with the form of a conditional sentence isn't necessarily a hypothetical imperative:
I'm not giving a legal opinion, ameteur or otherwise, nor trying to second-guess what the judiciary thinks. The judiciary can think whatever it wants to, why does it matter? I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes, and my opinion is that they have lots of rational-choice implications but zero moral implications. To put it another way, if everyone has a duty to refrain from X'ing, the importance of this duty is neither increased nor decreased by the existence (or lack thereof) of a law that punishes X'ers. I think I've offered plenty of philosophical arguments in this thread to try to back that up. But if you're looking for legal opinion, you're talking to the wrong guy.
I did mention "hypothetical imperatives" in my comment above. "Conditional imperative" was your terminology. You're right that a conditional sentence may turn out to be a categorical imperative. But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative with 3 different formulations, and since "If your society has laws, obey them" ain't on the list, I'm going to assume that Kant doesn't think it's a categorical imperative.
If so, it's just another hypothetical imperative whose validity depends on whether it is consistent with the categorical imperative. Kant apparently thinks it is, for unrelated reasons. That's where I depart from Kant, because I don't think the imperative in question is consistent with the categorical imperative. At the very least, it would have to be revised to something like "If your society has laws that promote obedience to the categorical imperative and its logical consequences, follow them."
>I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes
That's why I asked you before whether you were making a claim about the actual state of affairs in the US. If it's just your philosophical opinion and not a claim about how the law is actually interpreted, who cares? You're rather fond yourself of dismissing the opinions of the judiciary. Surely your opinions on the law are of even less account.
> But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative
That's really a terminological issue. There are clearly lots of specific moral requirements which follow from "the" categorical imperative, which meet the general requirements for being a categorical imperative (i.e. they are desire independent) and which don't meet the definition of a hypothetical imperative. I believe Kant did think that some kind of requirement to obey the law followed from the categorical imperative.
Again, since Kant does not agree with you on this specific issue, and since there are lots of moral philosophers besides Kant, what exactly is your point here? That Kant might have agreed with you if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't?
"actual state of affairs" !== "how the law is actually interpreted".
"actual state of affairs" === "the true, objective metaethical status of law".
> You're rather fond yourself of dismissing the opinions of the judiciary. Surely your opinions on the law are of even less account.
I'm of the philosophical opinion that nobody's legal opinion really matters when it comes to metaethical truths. If we were comparing legal opinions, my opinions would probably be worthless. But I thought we were talking about philosophical opinions? If my philosophical opinions are wrong, they'll be wrong because of flaws in the structure of the theory, not simply because the judiciary or anybody else thinks otherwise. The distinction between legal validity and moral truth is one of the most important concepts in the philosophy of law.
> I believe Kant did think that some kind of requirement to obey the law followed from the categorical imperative
Yes, he did. I said so in my comment above. I suggest that you read other people's comments more carefully before trying to repeat what they already said.
> since Kant does not agree with you on this specific issue ... what exactly is your point here? That Kant might have agreed with you if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't?
If you'd read my comment above, you might have noticed that I specified exactly where I disagree with Kant. But it looks like you're just scanning for loose sentences to quibble about.
> since there are lots of moral philosophers besides Kant
Of course there are. Some of them agree with Kant, others don't. There are also a number of philosophers, such as R. P. Wolff and A. J. Simmons, who argue that there is no duty to obey the law just because it's the law. I'm inclined to agree with them.
>If my philosophical opinions are wrong, they'll be wrong because of flaws in the structure of the theory, not simply because the judiciary or anybody else thinks otherwise.
Yes of course, but you haven't offered any justification of your philosophical opinions. Also, you weren't just offering a philosophical opinion. You said "there is no law against murder", which is at least on the face of it a factual statement regarding the law. It's clear in point 1 of this comment, for example, that you were originally trying to make a legal point and not a purely philosophical one:
Regarding Kant, I still don't see your point. He doesn't agree with you, and you haven't shown how his metaethical theory supports your views. So why are you referring to him?
Again, you are making a bizarre claim (that laws against murder do not constitute requirements that people should not commit murder) and provide nothing to back this up. You need to show that this is actually how laws are interpreted by the judiciary, not just give your own amateur legal opinion.
> Every conditional moral imperative...is an application of a general moral imperative (categorical imperative according to Kant).
That's not what I mean. I'm talking about a general moral imperative whose logical form is that of a conditional sentence. E.g. "If your society has laws, obey them." There is actually no such thing as a "conditional imperative" in Kant's system (were you thinking of hypothetical imperatives?) See the following (p. 293 first complete paragraph) for an explanation of why something with the form of a conditional sentence isn't necessarily a hypothetical imperative:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=GBzrg47sxBwC&lpg=PA291&ots=t...
The irony here is that Kant didn't think that people had a right to break the law or rebel against the government!
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2707741?uid=3739464&ui...
In any case, I'm not a Kantian, so I don't really care whether his ethical theory has this consequence or not.