Everybody discriminates, including virtue signallers who discriminate against people and things they, themselves, don't discriminate against. The law doesn't deal with morals, and we can discriminate to our heart's content against anyone or anything if we have a reason other than just dislike. Easy. Anyone who says differently is a liar and a fool

Sam, you say: "The moral law demands that I treat every individual as a free person equal to everyone else".

I have no objections with this moral law but what I want to know is, where do you think this "moral law" comes from?

Is it something that Kant or someone else made up, or is it just some free-floating thing that just happens to exist in the universe, or is it perhaps something given by God? Is there another alternative?

Surely this is crucially important. If Kant or some other human being simply made up "the moral law" what imperative is there for anyone to care what he/they made up if it is in someone's interests to ignore such made-up moral law?

If the moral law is something that just happens to exist in the universe, again, what imperative is there for anyone to take any notice of it? If someone disobeys such moral laws is that person thereby offending the atoms that make up the universe? Does that make any sense?

If the moral law should come from a God who has created us then surely that is the only way that such moral laws have any meaning or significance.

speaking of morals and humans rights without referring to the Maker of man's conscience is just one man's opinion against another.

I am impressed by the depth of Kant's thought, it definitely warrants further reading.

Yet, assuming the author represents Kant correctly, "Kant denies that we can have any such knowledge about others or even ourselves". The Upanishads face the same issues, but conclude that we CAN have this knowledge, and also discover our autonomy in the process. Not that it is quick and easy, not that it is common, but this is still possible and still, the only worthwhile pursuit for our lives.

Our true nature is autonomous - and freedom is possible by realising this. Our rationality, however, is not autonomous but still part of the world of phenomena. Identifying as "rational beings" (or "rational agents"), while better than identifying with our base inclinations, is still short of recognising who we truly are.

Indeed, we ought to treat others as "an end-in-itself", but this does not mean to treat their human persona as an end-in-itself, it means the true others, who they really are!

«Immanuel Kant lays the foundation for recognizing the inherent dignity of every individual – and discrimination is indeed an affront to human dignity.»

While I accept Kant's "inherent dignity of every individual", there is no such thing as "human dignity". The two are quite different - our inherent dignity is due to our divine nature, not due to our human nature.

Similarly, discrimination does not violate morality so long as it is only between our human qualities, rather than between us and others. It is OK to discriminate against the PERSON of another, so long as you do not identify the actual infinite and autonomous other with their finite, heteronomous personality.

I do not need a scholarly analysis to know that discrimination for whatever jusification, is wrong! We discriminate against the poor for being poor, the blacks for being black, the crippled for being crippled, the old for being old, the gay community for being born gay! And by our own action of free will and choice!

The poor are a special case, given it's those who work with their hands and minds tha create all the nation's wealth!

And the poor are those we deprive of their fair share.

Why? Well, if we didn't discriminate in this manner, we would not incentivise them to go work for substandard wages and many enterprises would go to the wall.

Therefore, this servitude for virtual slave wages must continue! I mean, we can't all be the PM on half a mill a year?

Thus we preserve privilege for the undeserving rich and powerful and or those who carved the log cabin they were born in from the wilderness, with their own bare hands. Some excuse their own biases and discrimination, by claiming, well we all do it!

Even if that just isn't so? Continue to use that justification to continue to discriminate at will without aforethought for the consequences, for their, easy as, targets!

What's morally wrong with discrimination? Everything! And you know it!
Alan B.

Dear Alan,

Even a rabbit discriminates between a carrot and a piece of chalk!