Kant's categorical imperative applied to audit?

• A. If everyone did what you're about to do, would the profession survive?
• B. Would the profession survive?
• C. Would clients be satisfied?
• D. Would it be legal?

Answer: (A)

This question tests applying Kant’s idea of the categorical imperative as a universalizability check. In audit ethics, you ask: can the maxim behind my planned action be willed to become a universal law that everyone in the profession could follow in similar situations? If everyone acted on that maxim, would the profession still function with integrity and trust, or would it collapse?

Choosing the option that asks whether, if everyone did what you’re about to do, the profession would survive, directly embodies that universalization test. It focuses on whether the action’s guiding rule could be consistently adopted by all auditors without undermining the profession’s legitimacy.

Why the other considerations aren’t as fitting for Kantian ethics: whether the profession as a whole would survive is a result of many factors and doesn’t test the action against a universalizable rule in isolation. Client satisfaction is about outcomes and preferences, not whether the action’s rule could be universalized. Legality concerns whether something follows the law, which is not the same as whether it could be willed as a universal maxim; an action could be legal but fail the universalizability test, or vice versa.