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A maxim is a moral rule or principle, which can be considered dependent on one's philosophy. A maxim is often pedagogical and motivates specific actions. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as: Generally any simple and memorable rule or guide for living; for example, 'neither a borrower nor a lender be'.
A contradiction in conception happens when, if a maxim were to be universalized, it ceases to make coherent sense because the "maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a universal law." [18] For example, if maxims equivalent to 'I will break a promise when doing so secures my advantage' were universalized, no one would ...
The concept of universalizability was set out by the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as part of his work Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.It is part of the first formulation of his categorical imperative, which states that the only morally acceptable maxims of our actions are those that could rationally be willed to be universal law.
The general concept or principle of moral universalizability is that moral principles, maxims, norms, facts, predicates, rules, etc., are universally true; that is, if they are true as applied to some particular case (an action, person, etc.) then they are true of all other cases of this sort.
This is a contradiction because if it were a universal action, no person would lend money anymore as he knows that he will never be paid back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability [clarify] (and thus contradicts perfect duty). With lying, it would logically contradict the reliability of language.
A legal maxim is an established principle or proposition of law, and a species of aphorism and general maxim.The word is apparently a variant of the Latin maxima, but this latter word is not found in extant texts of Roman law with any denotation exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the Medieval or modern definition, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on regular ...
In law and ethics, universal law or universal principle refers to concepts of legal legitimacy actions, whereby those principles and rules for governing human beings' conduct which are most universal in their acceptability, their applicability, translation, and philosophical basis, are therefore considered to be most legitimate. [citation needed]
When used in the context of ethics, the meaning of universal refers to that which is true for "all similarly situated individuals". [3] Rights, for example in natural rights, or in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, for those heavily influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment and its conception of a human nature, could be considered universal.