« Decline and Fall | Main | Congress In the Know » Defending Kant09 Dec 2007 03:15 pm In response to yesterday's anti-Kant attack ad, John Holbo suggests the following defense of Kant's ethics: I'd say, though, that this little ditty recapitulates one of the oft-criticized flaws in Kant's thinking, namely the surface non-equivalance of different formulations of the key moral principle. Comments (33)
Whenever I see that show I can't help but think of that guy when he was in "Avenue Q" 
rules are made for a reason, the good of all of us? I'm getting a very rule utilitarian vibe out of this clip. I'm sorry, but I can't see how the categorical imperative ever gets anywhere close to "moo at 2 o'clock."
That would actually seem to be an argument for rule Utilitarianism. Kant would reject that ethical rules need to be for the good of all of us. Some rules need to be followed even if they lead to the destruction of society. Although he would have agreed that not just anything should be a rule, rules should be followed for their own sake.
rules are made for a reason, the good of all of us? I'm getting a very rule utilitarian vibe out of this clip. I'm sorry, but I can't see how the categorical imperative ever gets anywhere close to "moo at 2 o'clock." the tone doesn't seem very kantian either. I mean, I know it's a show for kids, but I gotta think if anybody ever made a kant-themed kid show, it would have to maintain the preachy, dusty, deadly dull tone, even if only unintentionally. I'm thinking of the show with the old, sleepy guy they showed a few clips of in Mrs. Doubtfire. No true Kantians would ever debase themselves by appealing to popular tastes to build an audience.
I can't imagine Kant would have approved of any argument presented in such transparent and readily understandable terms.
Yeah, this doesn't illustrate any flaw of Kantianism because this illustrates utilitarianism. Kant explicitly said that whether a maxim can be universalized is not a question of whether we like the results. He never says very clearly what it does mean to say a maxim can be universalized, which is why many people believe the main flaw in Kant's ethics is that it makes no sense.
How is the "surface non-equivalence" of the different versions of the categorical imperative a *flaw*? If the different versions turn out to be equivalent below the surface, as it were, there's no problem, except for shallow readers. If the different versions turn out not to be equivalent, but rather systematically related in some other way, then, well, Kant let his pen slip in the *one place* in the Groundwork he says they're equivalent. Which is to say, there's barely a problem here either, except for shallow critics.
Nothing to be said against the occasional humorous blog entry on philosophy, but if it totally misses the mark and only conveys ignorance, then it's actually a bit annoying, sorry.
Re: utilitarianism: Check out the comments section on Crooked Timber. Post 14 addresses the Utilitarian question rather well I think.
"Whenever someone says hello, we have to kick their butt"? I must have hard that wrong.
"Nothing to be said against the occasional humorous blog entry on philosophy, but if it totally misses the mark and only conveys ignorance, then it's actually a bit annoying, sorry." You know, I expected something better than mere intellectual snobbery from the neokantian set. But then, it's worked well enough for the last couple of centuries, I'm sure it's become something of a reflex.
gerontion: I guess you are voting for Nietzsche then?
"Whenever someone says hello, we have to kick their butt"? I must have hard that wrong. Hey, no one ever said that strict adherence to the categorical imperative would make you popular.
To be honest, Kant vs. Nietzsche is a hard call-I disapprove of them both for equal and opposite reasons. I think I'd stump for a Hume/Spinoza ticket, if it's an antiquated philosophers only presidential bid. Politically I find Kant to be too Clintonian in mindset-trying too hard to forge that middle ground between opposing factions, wanting the credit for what's good about opposing view points all the while eschewing what isn't. And Nietzsche, well, let's just say, some people could make great leaders, and some people make great op-ed columnists. N doesn't make it into the first camp. I think during these trying times, we need someone with a skeptic's bent, someone comfortable in his own uncertain skin. Someone who could forge alliances with countries that he may find a little repugnant. Someone who can look at conflicts like Israel/Palestine and not instantly choose a side, to the detriment of peace. David Hume is that man. Vote Hume '08!
It really doesn't matter which of these guys gets the nomination -- the positivists are going to wipe the floor with them in the general.
You're joking, right? The positivists? I wish science were that popular. This is the country where The Secret made the New York Times bestseller list for 37 weeks in a row (at least).
I just can't enough of that. You know, if positivism was really alive and well, I could start going to bars again and not feel like every conversation with a stranger reduced to a lecture about the importance of factual verification in the construction of one's opinions about politics and the world. You can't even get to the part about whether the Iraq War was justified when you disagree over whether there really was an arsenal of chemical weapons in the country at the time of the invasion.
I believe it was Guther Grass who said that pedantry is close to humor. Which is an almost funny joke.
Gunther.
"David Hume is that man. Vote Hume '08!" I could never vote for someone who doesn't believe in hisself.
pedant p. schleiermacher: I think you mean Günter Grass
I would like to second the Hume nomination. He was planning a run in '04, but his early campaign brochures fell deadborn from the press.
Guess we now know that a whole bunch of the regular commenters majored in philosophy, just like our host Matt... I'm a theoretical physicist myself. We discover *realities* that were never dreamt of in any of *your* philosophies...
@ pedantischer: I am undone!
The radical Transhumanist position: There are no rules. There are no limits (outside physical law - and possibly not even there.) There is, however, purpose, and corollaries to that fact, and consequences to ignoring either purpose or corollaries. Which leads to correct and incorrect actions - and the need to choose between them. As to so-called "ethics" and "morality", correctness leaves them bleeding in the dust.
The 2 main problems with Kant's ethics: 1) its based entirely on intuition 2) the categorical imperative fails because many bad maxims can be universalized without contradiciton
It was perfectly fair for many to point out that the position taken by the song is not clearly Kantian. But I think at this point that negative position has been taken too far. "Nothing to be said against the occasional humorous blog entry on philosophy, but if it totally misses the mark and only conveys ignorance, then it's actually a bit annoying, sorry." Here's the thing. Although 'the good of all of us' is invoked, there is nothing in the song about maximizing the good, per se. Rather, what is emphasized is 1) the need to formulate an answer to the basic ethical question 'how should I live?' in terms of imperatives; which must be 2) rational (make sense, be non-arbitrary); universalizable (apply to everyone). This may not be pure Kant, but I submit it does not simply 'miss the mark'.
John, I grant you that one might make the connection to Kant in the way you outline, with big caveats, but you admit as much. My admittedly rather harsh comment was directed at MY glib one-liners (he dismissed Kant's aesthetics as 'absurd' in a previous post without further argument) which don't make much sense to me and come across as merely pretentious. Maybe there's some really deep thinking behind those, but without at least a little bit of elaboration we will never know.
Matthew Yglesias will start making detailed, thorough arguments for all of his claims the same day he starts writing with perfect grammar and spelling. It seemed to me that the weakest claim in Groundwork was that there are only two possible motives for any action, duty and inclination. I cannot come up with any interpretation of this claim that isn't either trivial or wrong. The trivial interpretation is really no better than the naïve psychological hedonists (I'm sure you've met one or two) who claim that the only motivation for anyone is pleasure-maximization, with main difference being that the trivial interpretation of Kant's view is basically like that of naïve psychological hedonists with an exception carved out for "duty," with everything outside of that exception being homogenized into "inclination." Okay. So that isn't really a problem with his moral philosophy per se. It's more of a problem with his positive views of the human psychology of motivation. The question in my mind is, how well does the rest of Kantian metaethics stand up if you get rid of the binary view of human motivation? I can't remember all of the detailed derivations in Groundwork, so I'm not sure. My sense is that even with a more realistic view of human motivation, his claims about autonomy and heteronomy of the will could still be made to work, but I don't know enough to say. Moo.
Regarding motives in Kant's ethics, my sense is that his moral maxims can be understood as associated with motives that are pure, or purely rational, uncontaminated by the anything derived from one's separate faculty of desire (which includes fear). He does not claim there exists or ever has existed any (truly) moral conduct, but does understand that intentional behavior by humans can be accorded moral worth to the extent its motives are undiluted. Indeed, this is a common way for us to judge actions. Unfortunately, we are only a bit better off with this because we can't actually know what our intentions are. Despite this, we make subjective judgements about it, and if we are morally guided, we attempt to live our life in accordance with them, as Kant himself can be said to have done. I must say that despite having different ethical theories to explain human moral conduct, I find both Kant and Hume having a very similar understanding of moral conduct. (Kant's attempt to justify the Church's views on sex and marriage, however, would, among other views, be an exception to this.) Their main influence, except to philosophers, is that they form part of the story of the foundation of the modern world and both would be hostile to what seems to be emerging in so-called neo-conservative political theories, or toward those who approve of Natural Law theories, governed by religious doctrine. Moreover, despite the prevalence in the general population of moral worth being assigned to persons, and indirectly to their actions, thereby countenancing any and all actions by person judged to be good, and otherwise by those adjudged evil, officially adopting this position would be contrary to advancing social justice.
Am I the only person who was surprised they actually made a show out of this old SCTV sketch? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgRERpcF2nE
Kant made the distinction between duty and inclination, not because this typology is self-evident, but because he felt it was a necessary move in order to cast moral decisions within the a priori. This was intended as a way to basically say, look-morality comes from reason, and philosophers are the arbiters of reason, therefore, it is philosophers, rather than theologians or statesmen, who are best able to explicate general truths about morality (when it comes to day to day moral decisions, he's pretty democratic, and assumes that men all come naturally equipped with the necessary tools for making moral judgment-it's just a matter of seeing things aright). He was also obsessed with the notion of the "synthetic a priori," which he came up with prior to writing the Groundwork, which he believed would help to carve out a a definitive space for philosophers (and presumably mathematicians) to work within, and establish his fame for all of time. The Categorical Imperative was the technique he came up with for taking particular moral situations and elevating them to the heady plane of a priori universality that supposedly typifies pure reason, while at the same time advancing his own personal vision of the ideal community.It is important to note that Kant didn't "discover" the features of his system of thought (although there are parts he imagined that he did), but rather jury-rigged a complex philosophical system together in order to make his own moral predispositions seem self-evident according to the philosophical assumptions of his time.
Comments closed December 23, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
That's really, really creepy.
Posted by Antid Oto | December 9, 2007 3:21 PM