Is Kant's categorical imperative same as 'empathy'?

No. Kant’s imperative is too absolute. Humans are not capable, in the most part, of behaving according to this maxim.

No, because empathy feels rather than thinks.

No. Kant’s is talking mechanistically. An action is permissible provided that it is okay if everybody does it. It is like the argument against doing something that starts out, “What if everybody did that?” According to Kant, lying is never permitted because lying would be unworkable if everybody lied all the time. Kant’s basic idea was a major contribution, but he carried it a bit too far.

I understand where you’re coming from.

Thinking about your intended actions in a frame that is beyond your own subjective view. That kind of asks one to look at it from the other actors’ perspectives. It leans to empathy, I am however agreeing with the above that it isn’t.

The veil of ignorance is another instrument that makes you consider other actor’s interests and points of view. In many ways moral philosophy is exactly about that: taking other actors’ interests in mind and about what is right and wrong when your own and other actors’ interests misalign.

Empathy helps a lot in ‘feeling the justification’ of ethical guidelines.

No, it’s not. Empathy in and of itself is purely subjective, and Kant was looking for a purely objective evaluation of meal behavior. Kant wanted nothing to do with empathy, and found it severely lacking as a basis for moral guidelines.

No. As stated above, emotions are real, but how we act when we experience them is subjective and very susceptible to conditioning. Like fear. Why are some people afraid of friendly dogs. Why can soldiers be trained to act a particular way in spite of intense fear.

And it isn’t as if people are not capable of acting in accordance to this standard. It is that they would be foolish if they did. Also as stated, Kant used this as a basis for saying that nobody should ever lie. So… if you were baby sitting, and homicidal pedophile came to the door and asked if there were children in the house, according to Kant you should say yes. I would say no. So would you. Only an idiot would not lie in that case. So that is that.

@josie Kant wasn’t about telling the truth just to tell the truth. It was about telling the truth under the assumption that human beings want to have the truth told to them in all circumstances. If, after a frank discussion with somebody, they told your they would find it acceptable to lie to them in certain circumstances, Kant would be okay with that. It’s been a long time since I’ve studied this, so I’ve forgotten the buzz words, but their basic humanness would not be violated. They told you it was okay, so it’s ok. You could not extrapolate to other people or adjacent situations.
I’m trying to think of a way that Kant would be okay with you lying to the pedophile though and I’m not sure. But Kant would say that the pedophile shouldn’t do that because it violates the basic humanness of the children. You know, for all the good that’d do.

You have to understand what Kant was trying to do. The current theory of morality at the time was utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number. There are a number of objections that can be raised against utilitarianism, but Kant’s particular view is worth considering. He said that morality should be non-contingent, that acts are intrinsically right or wrong independent of their consequences. We do feel a sense of uneasiness about lying or stealing, even when we feel that such acts are justified. Regardless of what anyone says, there is no neat formula for morality. There are, however, guidelines. Utilitarianism is one such guideline and Kant’s view is another.

@LostInParadise Isn’t Kant’s view is also similar to utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism says you should calculate the effects of an action in terms of overall happiness. Kant says that the effect on overall happiness is irrelevant, that actions have predetermined moral worth. Kant does consider the effect of the action but only in terms of the action itself. His criterion is that if doing something universally is self-defeating then it should not be done.

@LostInParadise According to what does Kant base his moral judgements?
Actions have Predetermined moral worth – does it have to do with God?

@illusionslies I wish I could remember the buzz word. It’s something like not violating a person’s intrinsic humanness. So if by lying to someone you reduce their free will, that’s the part Kant objects to. You need to treat each individual how they would want to be treated (a subtle but key variant of the golden rule).

That’s it… I’m going to wikipedia. (Trailing footsteps…)

(... crescendo footsteps). And I’m back. Wow that’s dense. I didn’t find what I’m looking for.I hate defining things by what they’re not but someone in this thread pointed out earlier Kant was the opposite of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism would say you help the most number of people possible. Kant would say the welfare of each person you affect with a decision must be optimized. In practical application this would likely require their input. Utilitarianism would say “the ends justify the means”. Kant would say that if the means do not justify themselves, they are evil, no matter what the ends. They would categorically be evil. So Kant would never approve of the NSA or what it does, because their methods are categorically evil, even if their ends are (can be argued) pure.
I style myself a Kantian ethicist, mostly about the point that you can believe in utilitarian ethics, but as soon as you draw the short straw in that arrangement, you are likely to bray about how your rights have been violated.

@illusionslies , Kant’s basic principle is that acts have to be consistent. If everyone lied then you would never pay attention to what anyone said, so lying is self-defeating. Similarly if everyone stole from everyone else all the time. The one guiding principle that I recall is that Kant said people should be treated as agents and never as objects.