Fights over beer are hardly unknown, particularly in the hard drinking circles of Russia (though vodka would appear the more likely fuel). However, police were called to a fight between two men standing in line over beer where one shot the other after arguing over . . . the writings of philosopher Immanuel Kant. It is clear that Kant and beer do not mix.

I much prefer this beer fight than those this weekend over football teams. I would much prefer undercover cop looking for intolerant philosophers to our current need to use undercover cops to seek out thugs at football games.

The men in the 20s started arguing over Kant when a fistfight erupted. One man then used a nonlethal pistol and shot the other man repeatedly. The second man was hospitalized.

The men might want another look at the categorical imperatives in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785).

However, the shooter may have been motivated by Kant’s oft-cited Latin expression from Perpetual Peace: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus (“Let justice be done, though the world perish”), However, Kant translated this as “Let justice reign even if all the rascals in the world should perish from it.” Well, this may have been an effort to rid the world, or at least the beer line, of one rascal.