How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

As used by Harry Frankfurt, this term describes the actions of someone who, instead of deliberately lying to conceal the truth, simply doesn’t care what is true or not, instead projecting a phony persona. Schur highlights this as morally bankrupt behavior, the opposite of sincerely apologizing and seeking to do better.

This is an influential philosophical concept originated by Immanuel Kant. In its first and most famous formulation, the categorial imperative states that people should act only in ways that they would want to serve as a universal law for everyone to follow. A second formulation indicates that individuals should be treated as ends in themselves, never as a means to an end. As the central tenet of Kant’s moral theory, Schur frequently applies the categorical imperative while analyzing various moral dilemmas.

Consequentialism is a branch of moral philosophy that involves judging actions by their consequences, rather than the intrinsic qualities of the actions themselves. Schur uses the term more or less interchangeably with utilitarianism, though he acknowledges that utilitarianism is technically a subset of consequentialism.