[megmogandog]

Sorry to be pedantic, but the categorical imperative is not about reasoning from the consequences of an action if everyone did it. It's about testing whether it's even possible for you to will the maxim of your action as a universal law without contradiction, or to what extent your action respects the rational agency of other humans. You could make the Kant-inspired argument that taking a limited resource for your private enjoyment does deprive others of their agency, but it's not Kantian to say "it's wrong to take the fossils because then there will be no more fossils."

[Tao3300]

See, I know you're lying because a pedant is never sorry.

[megmogandog]

I guess it would've been more honest to say "sorry to seem pedantic," because for me the comment was not mere pedantry (which I think of as hairsplitting for the sake of hairsplitting) but rather a matter of a fundamental distinction in moral philosophy (consequentialist vs. deontological ethics).

I mean, philosophy has a reputation for just that kind of hairsplitting but this seems to bear pretty directly on the basic ethical question of "What should I do?", one of the most important questions for humans to ask imo