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How is one to decide when it is justified to violate a moral rule? We have already seen that one answer, break a rule whenever you think the consequences of breaking it would be better, is not a viable procedure for fallible biased beings. But clearly sometimes these rules should be broken. Contrary to Kant, one should lie to a hired killer in order to save an innocent person’s life. Some people seem to think that these are the only two options: either break the rules whenever you think there would be better consequences or never break the rule. But as this slide shows, a third option is the correct one; it is justifiable to break a rule only when one would be willing for everyone to know that they can break the rule in the same circumstances. This procedure serves to counteract our natural biases, and incorporates the impartiality that everyone recognizes is an essential feature of morality. The opposite of impartiality is arrogance, acting in a way that you would not be willing for everyone to know that they can act. Acting impartially by violating a moral rule only when one would be willing for everyone to know that they can violate the rule in the same circumstances takes into account the fallibility of people, but allows for some violations.  Obviously, for this procedure to work one must have a way to specify what counts as the same circumstances, and that is done by using the morally relevant features of the circumstances, but unfortunately, I don’t have time to discuss these now, but can answer questions about them later.