Dennis's blog

This brief essay will explain how the statement "Meringue is a Horrible Abomination, and Should be Excluded from All Meals, Especially Desserts" can be derived from Kant's categorical imperative, "A person must be treated as an end in himself, never only as a means."

The importance of the categorical imperative is hardly debatable, but its truth is amply demonstrated by saying that it is imperative that the categorical imperative is hardly debated categorically, but rather is categorically debated hardly by the imperative.

The argument then moves to an elaboration: Treating a person as an end in himself means treating a person in a way that respects their individual moral worth, i.e., offering them pleasing and delicious meals. A good meal respects an individual's equal moral worth. In contrast, treating a person as a means means serving them something gross. It is undisputable (and therefore undisputably true, or True) and meringue ruins any meal, and is gross.

There are three elements to the Truth that meringue is gross (gross meaning, in this case, horrible and disgusting). First, we must proceed from the epistomological idea that we know (or Know) what we know because we are (or Are) sentient beings, as in, we can taste, and therefore can distinguish between good tastes and bad tastes. Hence we expand the Cartesian declaration:" I [taste], therefore I am [able to tell that this pie tastes like crap because of all the meringue]." Second, meringue has a weird, airy texture and adds nothing to the dish. Third, meringue is not to be trusted.

Because meringue is gross, serving meringue to a person (even an enemy, or an enemy combatant) is the equivalent of treating a person as a means, not an end in himself. This reasoning leads to the inescapable conclusion that meringue is a horrible abomination, and should be excluded from all meals, especially desserts.