Is it OK to Order Go-Food/Grab Food when it’s Raining Heavily?
By: Ivan Sanders
Tags: Morality, Philosophy, Food, Technology

On Morality of Ordering Food during a Heavy Rain

So why does ordering Go-Food during the rain violates Kant’s second categorical imperative?

What the hell is Kant’s second categorical imperative anyways?

Kant’s Categorical Imperative, is one moral theory by Emmanuel Kant. The main idea for the theory is morality should be separated from religions/deities. Morality, Kant argues, should stem from pure reason.

If morality stems from religion, or lack of thereof, morality from person to person would vary in accordance to their belief (or lack of thereof). Kant’s first categorical imperative is that morality, should be able to be universally applied. Meaning that before you set out to do something, let’s say, stealing, one should first assess what would it like if everybody do the same thing. Everybody stealing from everybody does not seem like a good idea for a society.

Hence, one should not make exceptions to the rule to him/herself.

The second categorical imperative that was referred to is that we should not use another human being merely as means to an end. The idea is one should respect another one’s autonomy and interest.

For instance, let’s say you want to borrow money from your uncle and you say it’s for your tuition fee. As it is in your uncle’s interest to have a well educated niece, he agreed, and give you money for your tuition.

Then you used the money you received from your uncle to buy cocaine.

This way you are abusing your uncle’s autonomy and interest to “have a well educated niece”, and use the money to advance your interest instead, to snort cocaine, and become a junkie.

So the key idea is here consent. a friend of mine liken this to asking consent before sex. If the other party consents, it’s all good. If the other party do not consent, we call that rape, or rather, violation of Kant’s second categorical imperative. Your uncle didn’t give you consent to snort cocaine, but you lied to him and use his money to solely advance your own interest.

How does this all relate to ordering Go-Food in the rain?

Assuming drivers are forced to accept orders, it is clear that we are violating upon his autonomy by forcing him to deliver food in the midst of the rain, when it is not in their interest to do so (their interest would be, to work while still protecting their health and well-being).

But we now know that drivers actually have a choice as to accept the order or not. How does this violates the second categorical imperative?

The core of Kant’s second imperative, is to protect the interest of others. By ordering Go-Food during heavy rain, customers are creating a demand for “food during heavy rains”. The drivers, needing money, will feel compelled to complete such orders, regardless of they wanting to do it or not. Unwittingly, customers demand for food during the rain created a situation where it is expected of the drivers to complete the orders during heavy rain, thus subjecting the drivers into a situation that is against their best interest.

Borrowing the word of the good man himself (Mr. WK), “one can counter-argue that it is in their best interest not to be given work in the pouring rain, i.e. they will get sick, regardless of their ‘want’.”