A more lovely example could not be presented of deciding in advance what one is going to consider right and wrong and then constructing some pseudo-logical monstrosity to justify it post hoc. Well done. I presume that was your objective...
If one cannot, then he or she is to that extent not free.
I am not sure Kant would say that there even are situations where you cannot do your duty. If you cannot do something, it cannot really be considered your duty. What makes your actions free is then choosing your duty.
But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact.
This is a result of the negative conception of freedom as the freedom to be left alone which has come to dominate in Europe and the US. Here freedom is the freedom from all obligations and duties, mostly imagined as being imposed by the state or, more broadly, society.
I think it's important to consider how both conceptions came to be. Kant starts his from the bottom up. From the theoretical possibility of the freedom of will to it's practical application to the social conditions that create the "state of freedom".
Meanwhile, the "common sense" notion of freedom as freedom from interference is the result of social movements that were concerned with specific instances of interference and violence, from which they generalised.
As a result, the idea of personal freedom is mostly derived from legal concepts, such as the concept that all legal restriction require specific justification, which was then applied more generally to signify freedom.
I think a good way to start to point out why this is problematic is to start with situations that are commonly considered extremely unfree. Chattel slavery is an obvious one. At first glance, one might argue that chattel slavery represents the ultimate imposition of obligations and duties on the slave. But I think it's actually the opposite. Someone who is considered no different from a horse or cow cannot have duties or obligations. Their relationship to others, specifucally the "master", is purely one of naked ability - in this case ability to use force. I think this points towards the conclusion that freedom is not at all freedom from duty.
I can't make sense of this proposition, you seem to have used 'freedom' in two different ways and whilst I understand the latter, I'm unclear on the former. in "freedom from duty" I understand freedom to mean 'the absence of constraint caused by...' (in this case duty). But it would make no sense to have this meaning in the former use, since no constraint is given. So what is the use of 'freedom in it's first instance that you're trying to define by it's second use?
So what is the use of 'freedom in it's first instance that you're trying to define by it's second use?
You're right, this isn't very clearly written. I'd say there are at least three different definitions for freedom: the theoretical freedom of will, acting in accordance with the principles of freedom and freedom as a result of a certain social organisation.
The latter is the most difficult to pin down, I would roughly describe it as a society that enables it's members to self-actualise to the largest extent possible.
Jack CumminsDecember 29, 2020 at 13:36#4834440 likes
Reply to tim wood
This is an interesting area of discussion as the whole way in which law is sometimes seen as restrictive, while it can be protective too. The example of motorcycle helmets is a good one, and I have known someone who died of head injuries because he was not wearing a helmet.
It is questionable what would happen if some of the laws we had did not exist, such as rules against drink driving and using drugs. Would we be tempted to go and buy skunk weed if it was readily available in the supermarket and many of us end up with drug induced psychosis?
Perhaps we need some restrictions on us to protect us in exploring freedom. Of course, law is not straightforward and static, but evolves in the face of the complexities arising in legal cases.
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ValentinusDecember 30, 2020 at 00:32#4835670 likes
Not using other people as means is easier said than done. As a criterion of decision, one might have to require others to work at something to avoid treating them as an "end" or them becoming subjects of awful people. The model is not self sufficient.
Likely most of us are aware Kant held that acting on desire is acting subject to desire, and being subject-to meaning not free. The "freedom" in freedom from being not the same as in freedom to. Not much, then, of our time is spent in exercises of freedom. The rest his mix of morality and reason.
I'm of the opinion that Kant's entire philosophy is built on defining certain things as precisely what they are not, and maybe freedom is one of the best examples of this. I mean, intuitively, there are few things more oppressive for our emotions and our feeling of being free than having some duty imposed on us, especially a duty which we do not also desire to do. Isn't that what you're trying to get at with your helmet example? You have a duty to wear the helmet all the time, but it's unbearable because it restricts your freedom, so you cheat sometimes and take it off. Or is it the case that because there's a law, you don't even have a duty anymore because you are acting under the threat of being punished?
Long past the age, actually, and, finally. No need for further investigation.
Indulgence. Ehhhh....granting the authority of a particular moral philosophy doesn’t mean actually living by it. I’m pretty sure I haven't always lived up to the obligations necessarily integrated into mine.
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Reply to tim wood ...there isn't an argument in there, so far as I can see, to which the conclusion is that " freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else"...
You have a rough definition of duty, a constricting definition of reason, a to-brief discussion of the nature of freedom, one example that leaves out the bit about nothing else; and that's it.
Lock's version fo freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will. It is a power to have one's body do as one commands. Given the ubiquity of this account in our world, it will not do for you to simply state that freedom is freedom to do one's duty.
Lock's version fo freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will.
But this definition of liberty seems fairly useless in practice, because everyone either has this capacity at all times - even at gunpoint - or they never have it. It's only real relevance would be to pathologic changes of the ability to form a will at all.
This leaves out all the practically important questions.
I mean, intuitively, there are few things more oppressive for our emotions and our feeling of being free than having some duty imposed on us, especially a duty which we do not also desire to do.
But isn't it also intuitively true that freedom involves the freedom from outside influences? From hunger, outside pressure, social norms? And can we not then go further and conclude that freedom also implies absence of motivations like fear or anger or any equally influential emotions? From there, it's only a small hop over to desires.
Freedom is a force which simultaneously determines both self-as-cause and self-as-effect
We can only feel free when we desire something, and upon experiencing emotion related to that desire, realize that our reasons for feeling this way are inadequate. The emotion that is felt falls back into an unexplained form, and consciousness is finally able to ask itself what it truly wants.
We continue to feel free as we plan out or new strategy either to desire something else or to go about getting our desired in a different way. But the feeling of freedom quickly breaks down after that and the thought process after that is indeterminate. Lots of things could happen, like getting frustrated, realizing you didn't really desire that end after all, satisfaction, simply getting distracted, or resignation.
But in that moment, we feel that we are causing whatever happens (self as cause), and that however it affects us is also in our control -- we have a predetermined notion of what will happen, not in the sense that we know exactly what will happen, but we've already made up our mind about how we will let it affect us (self as effect). Imagine a soldier summoning the courage to charge out of the trenches. He might die or might live, but he believes in that moment that he can accept whatever happens.
But isn't it also intuitively true that freedom involves the freedom from outside influences? From hunger, outside pressure, social norms? And can we not then go further and conclude that freedom also implies absence of motivations like fear or anger or any equally influential emotions? From there, it's only a small hop over to desires.
See! This is where Kant is sneaky. I'm not an expert, but I bet if I say that duties arising through the Categorical Imperative are outside influences, we would find that Kant insists this is all a principle of our reasoning and so is an inner influence of some type and not impinging on our freedom.
But actually maybe Kant's idea here is correct, or almost correct. Because I don't think any emotion can be understood without considering what consciousness thinks is good. In fact, our empathy for others doesn't depend very much on reading facial expressions but on predicting the motivations and intentions of others. Maybe if we don't do what is best we won't be free because we'll feel doubt, guilt, remorse, paranoia, etc.
This is no different than re-defining terms to refute an argument, rather than using the terms given by the argument and showing some conclusion of that argument doesn’t follow from them.
Locke’s liberty can never stand anywhere near Kant's freedom. It is dialectically absurd to use Locke to refute Kant, when they have entirely different domains supporting their respective philosophies. Locke, and by association, you and your raising arm, are concerned with empirical actions of the will for general purposes, while Kant is concerned with the pure a priori conditions under which the will acts, and then only those conditions and acts pursuant to a very specific, altogether singular, purpose.
Here’s your Word of the Day: Noogony. Don’t fall for it.
You seem to think there's an argument there, but I can't see it. The missing piece seems to be a presumption that doing one's duty is the only thing that one can choose freely; but as soon as this is stated, the contradiction is clear; if one must only choose to do one's duty, then that choice is not free.
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Context helps, maybe:
“....In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expression), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions of reflection...”
————-
Since a cause implies an effect and an effect implies a cause, the only way to make sense of them is to have something which simultaneously determines both, which I call "force". A statistical correlation is not evidence of a cause-effect relationship because it is missing the force.
See! This is where Kant is sneaky. I'm not an expert, but I bet if I say that duties arising through the Categorical Imperative are outside influences, we would find that Kant insists this is all a principle of our reasoning and so is an inner influence of some type and not impinging on our freedom.
Yeah, you may be onto something here. One of the common criticisms of Kant is that he dismisses emotions pretty much out of hand. It was just obvious to Kant that reasoning was a) sufficiently different from emotions to be it's own category and b) should trump pure emotion as a motivation.
On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that some internal motivations must be privileged over others. Otherwise, we'd come to the absurd conclusion that since every influence does at some point turn into an internal motivation, even outside force would be considered "free".
And if we're going to privilege some internal motivations over others, reasoning seems a good candidate to choose.
But actually maybe Kant's idea here is correct, or almost correct. Because I don't think any emotion can be understood without considering what consciousness thinks is good. In fact, our empathy for others doesn't depend very much on reading facial expressions but on predicting the motivations and intentions of others. Maybe if we don't do what is best we won't be free because we'll feel doubt, guilt, remorse, paranoia, etc.
I always found Kant's idea that freedom is doing what you think is right convincing. What higher expression of your self could there be?
Let's see if we can start to figure out what freedom is, out of deference to you who do not like definitions.
Your post is a rather neat example of why I find definitions suspect, presenting nothing of how the word is actually used, but instead inventing esoteric verbalism.
You define freedom as the capacity to act according to one's duty. That's quite at odds with the definition given in those dictionaries that seek to set out how words are actually used, as opposed to how Tim wants them to be used.
So one is left to conclude that when Tim talks about freedom, he is not talking about the same thing as the rest of us. We can safely ignore what he has to say about, because he is not talking about freedom.
Reply to Banno I think you're trivializing Tim's argument to some degree. For one thing, since Tim started off the discussion with Kant's definition, we can presume that this thread is about the Kantian idea of freedom. In which case we could treat my argument as the one that is off topic and just consider Kant as introducing specialized language, i.e. jargon.
So one is left to conclude that when Tim talks about freedom, he is not talking about the same thing as the rest of us. We can safely ignore what he has to say about, because he is not talking about freedom.
This assumes that two different definitions cannot later be shown to be logically equivalent. For example, a circle is "a locus of points equidistant from a center" and it is also a "curve of constant curvature in a plane".
Reply to Garth
If someone were to say that all circles have three vertices, and then offer in argument that a circle is a plane figure with three sides, one might do well to trivialise their argument. Suggesting that they might later show that the locus of all points equidistant from a given point is also a plane figure with three sides does not help.
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On definitions: fascinating that the third section of part two of “Lectures.....” is mostly definitions, part two establishing the background to which the definitions subsequently apply. Just about anything you can think relative to morality or ethics is covered, and would be advisable in following Kant.
Reply to tim wood What do you want? Kant is not using the term "freedom" in the way it is usually used, hence his argument does not apply to what is usually called freedom.
He's talking about something else.
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Where it is legal, many motorcycle riders do not wear helmets. (As a long-experienced rider I am well aware of the charms of helmetless travel, and recognize that there are limited situations when it is relatively safe - traffic not one of those situations - my bona fides and biases up front.)
But what is wrong with it? Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly. There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm.
And I think the logic of the thing compels agreement.
That is a statement about courses of action, not definitions. What we 'call' such a course of action is not relevant to the normative force you want to impart to it.
I want to return to the OP. It suggests that systems of rights do not determine what is right or wrong. Rights therefore only function for legal purposes as principles for resolving disputes and interpretation of laws. Therefore if you tell someone "Don't do that, it's wrong!" they cannot defend their actions by replying "I have the right to do it!"
There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm.
Absolutely, at least with respect to freedom as a moral condition, for such is gross disrespect for humanity in general regarding cause, and himself as a member of it, regarding risk.
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-By Kant's definition of freedom, riding without a helmet is not freedom.
-We all think freedom is a good thing.
-We should therefore not ride motorbikes without helmets.
But you equivocate on the meaning of freedom between the first and second point. If riding a motorbike without a helmet is not freedom as Kant defines it then the only thing that follows from that is that we should not ride motorbikes without helmets if we value freedom as Kant defines it.
Since it is nowhere shown why we should do so, nor empirically demonsrated that such a value is likely to be one we all hold, the conclusion has no normative force.
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I do not know what normative force (NF) is, but maybe we don't need to go that way. I will assume there is such a thing, and that it is somehow, someway, more compelling than mere collective agreement. So, would you allow that arithmetic has NF? the idea being that if NF, then relativism is ruled out.
My bad. By normative force I simply mean something like persuasive power with regards to action - ie the the difference between saying to someone "you ought not do x" and "you ought not do x because...". the degree to which the 'because...' is persuasive is the normative force of the statement.
And let's block here any form of nihilism. He or she can deny up is up or down is down, represent that up is down, or say that 2+2=5. But the nihilist annihilates truth, and in this truth is presupposed. Our job then, as best we can, to identify it, and to satisfy ourselves that what we think is true, actually is; and then to see if in virtue of being true it possesses NF.
I think you make a false dichotomy between nihilism and rationally derived truth, There are other values than rationally derived truth which might give normative force to a statement. for example "If you don't do X no-one will like you" has normative force because (generally) we want to be liked. Us generally wanting to be liked is an empirical observation and anyone denying it would have quite a job of persuasion, so there's little risk of nihilism, but nor is there a rational argument there as to why we 'ought' to want to be liked - we just do. That's why, when I said about your argument having normative force I offered two courses - the rational argument, or the appeal to some value we're likely to hold commonly.
No doubt feeling can add verisimilitude, but is itself an imitation of NF. What is left? I find reason. Do you find anything different? And reason must be before experience, because experience cannot create reason
I'm not sure where you're getting this line of argument from, it seems to have no basis that we might share (or are you simply trying to establish that basis?). In the latter case then I'm afraid we do not have common ground from which to argue because I disagree with your axiom here. I believe 'reason' is simply a habit of thinking which has proven useful. The 'proven useful' part is experience. We think in such algorithms as show that 2+2=4 simply because such methods yield useful results, not because such thinking methods are somehow hard-wired into the universe (though they may be somewhat hard-wired into us).
"We hold these truths to be self-evident." We had better, or we hold no truths to be evident at all.
Agreed. But it is absolutely evident that we do not all hold the same truths to be self-evident. That there is a need to hold something as self evident to avoid nihilism cannot be held up as an argument in support of any specific such something. Support for some particular something (truth held as self-evident) might come from psychology, anthropology, sociology, religion...but it cannot come from rational argument because rational argument must always take a premise and show a conclusion. If the conclusion is "X should be taken as self-evident" what would the premise there be?
We can sample it, but for immersion you have to go there.
It's hard to tell if you're claiming these as empirical observations or rational conclusions. If the latter, the question is the same for each - what is the premise from which you derive these as conclusions? As the former they fail spectacularly in terms of support.
1) Mankind alone is free - we have no reason to believe this. We feel like we're free, but then we also find ourselves making decisions we later which we'd given more thought to, anden masse we seem to make some incredibly self-defeating choices. The jury is very much still out as to how 'free' we are.
2) Mankind alone can make moral choices - The jury is not even really still out on this one. Majority opinion is that at least great apes have morality that is biologically indistinguishable from our own. I can provide citations if you're interested.
3) Reason alone is the original source of moral choices - Again, not even up for debate really. FMRI scan show moral decisions being made involving areas of the brain at times completely separate from those involved in rational decisions. We unequivocally do not make moral decisions solely by rational thought. again, if you require citations I can provide them
4) Morality is the ability to discern and distinguish the right, and to choose accordingly - Yes, I think that's a good working definition.
5) Humanity, in self and community, has value (or it has no value) - Yep, no argument there either.
6) Life in itself has value (or it has no value) - Again, agreed.
7) The right is in accordance with a reverence for life and humanity - It certainly seems to be, but consider acts of bravery in war, these may well involve killing an 'enemy'. I think reverence for life and humanity is part of it, but it's complicated in times of conflict.
8) In order to act morally, one must be free to act - Not so sure on this one. There does seem to be some necessity to have free choice (if we're forced to do a 'good' thing, that is rarely seen as virtuous), but I'd be sceptical that a definition requires us to know the 'true' extent of someone's freedom. Were that the case we'd never be able to properly use the word. It must be sufficient that there's a general appearance of freedom (ie no-one's putting a gun to your head). I see no reason why that need extend to the absence of psychological drives to act. Such drives are, after all, just as much part of 'us' as our rational thoughts.
9) Duty is the obligation to act in accordance with morality - Seems like another good working definition.
10) Realization of purpose under morality is the highest aim of mankind - Empirically difficult to see how this is true. as a rational conclusion it requires a jump from identifying that which is moral to identifying an absence of other equally pressing objectives - something you've not yet done.
The helmetless rider in traffic harms no one, until he is subject to the routine accident that every experienced rider assumes, knows, will happen sooner or later. But for the helmetless rider, the accident that may have just scraped some denim and maybe some skin, that he should bounce up and walk away from, is instead death, whether a living death or a dead death. At the least is a devastated family. And nearby is a rehabilitation hospital that takes on brain-injury cases, and that care is so long and expensive only the state and federal government can afford it, i.e., me for sure and maybe you!
The helmetless spirit inhabits every level where there is ignorance or stupidity. And in a crowding world, mere personal moral failure becomes offense in fact.
Right - so this ^ is all what I mean by post hoc rationalisation. Nothing you've said here is false, but it is 'selected' to achieve an end (helmetless riding is bad, helmeted riding is not). Where, in your assessment of potential harms is the particulate pollution that even helmeted riding produces - arguably more damaging than the occasional motorcycle accident? Where the risk to other road users simply by virtue of unnecessary travel - all motorised vehicles are dangerous, the leading cause of death in many places? Where the harm caused simply by buying the bike - unfair working practices, modern slavery derived components...? I could go on.
The point is simply that regardless of our conclusions about the flaws or otherwise in your moral framework, it is without a doubt that it's application is post hoc - you already know what sorts of things you'd' like to turn out to be 'right' and which you'd like to turn out to be 'wrong'. They're generally the things which seem good to you. I can guarantee you that if a moral algorithm ever produced the result that you should murder your wife you simply wouldn't do it, you'd presume you'd made a mistake somewhere. Why? Because you already know it's wrong. It's not like maths. I have no feeling about the 'right' answer to a complicated sum, but I already know which answers to complicated moral dilemmas feel wrong.
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My only objection is regarding the title itself, Freedom AND Duty for it's a contradiction. Freedom means we're is at liberty to do whatever we want but duty implies that we're not. An odd couple these two.
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Reply to tim wood The point that I, @Isaac and @TheMadFool have made remains: You are not using Freedom in the same way as the rest of us. Your account is therefore irrelevant to discussions of freedom per se.
All you have done is define freedom as doing one's duty, then claimed that freedom is doing one's duty. Trivial and irrelevant.
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Depends on "want." I want my coffee in the morning. I am "at liberty" to get it, and "free" to choose my means. But am I free wrt to the having of it? Not really. Fortunately for me no question of duty that I know of arises directly out of my having my coffee. But if I move 3,000 lbs. of steel, burning non-renewable fossil fuels, taking the time for a 12 miles round-trip, contributing my increment to the dangers of the road, which in the presence of snow and ice are not trivial, for cup of expensive bitter-flavored hot water, am I being a reasonable man? What say you?
Why can't you just say that freedom - being able to do whatever we want - is either an impediment or an obstruction for the good, that duty - being unable to do whatever we want - is what defines the good?
In a Kantian universe good means certain morally meaningful duties, obligations to either perform or not perform certain actions but we're completely free with respect to whether we accept to live by this Kantian moral code or not.
Thus, to append to what you said, and I quote, "freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty (OR NOT)".
It's kinda like having the freedom to either become a member or not become a member of a club (the Kantian club) but once you're a member you have to follow the rules (Kantian duties). :chin:
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Banno who has made clear he doesn't like. definitions and thinks they derail discussion.
Banno's point, consistently over many years, is that fathoming how a word is used is often the task of philosophy; and hence commencing with definitions is usually superfluous. This thread being typical.
Your insistence that we would understand were we only to read more Kant reads like an invitation to a cult - arcane knowledge is to be had, come join us!
What do you mean by "raw capacity". You speak as if freedom has a meaning other than being able to do whatever we want. Pray tell, what is this other meaning?
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"Murder" would never be moral. As to killing, it's conceivable that she should be killed, but not that I should do it. The reason being that marriage is a peculiar, unique contract
It's things like this that I don't know how to respond to, and yet your posts are littered with them. Am I to take such brazen declarations as something you're supposedly educating me about, or as a rhetorical device to seek agreement/disagreement. It's really hard to tell, you keep just declaring things to be the case without offering any support or inviting agreement, it's frankly a bit odd. Not that I mind odd, but it's difficult to formulate a response.
What does HR do? He puts me at disproportionate risk of damage, harm, injury, death.
Right. As does the helmeted rider via other means. That was my point. He doesn't serve as a waymarker of anything other than your personal preference for riding motorcycles but doing so with helmet. Or, being more charitable, if he does serve as a waymarker it is only of the basic truth that some behaviours are less socially responsible than others. I don't see how it's any waymarker helping to decide which are which.
That is, if you're going to argue that moral freedom includes the ability to determine the moral action on the basis of what you like or don't like, then we're irreconcilable
You've misunderstood the purpose of my example. I'm not arguing that what is moral is just what we like or don't like. I'm saying that "Y will lead to X and you'd like X" is an example of a conclusion with normative force. Equally ..."and X is better for society" might do the same, or "...and X will make your loved ones happier"...
At root, people will only do what they feel some motivation to do, and that includes behaving rationally.
The reason being that in liking or wanting, to that extent we're not free, but rather subject-to. A matter of having a liberty. Agreed, the word "freedom" is commonly used here, and well-understood, but it cannot stand because it's a contrary to the freedom Kant has in mind.
Again, this skirts the issue here. I'm quite happy with the notion of a 'Kantian' Definition of freedom. Let's call it Freedom B and the more normal definition Freedom A. Now when one says "you ought not do X because it leads to a loss of Freedom A", one does not need to go any further. People risk their lives for Freedom A, it is evidently something people aspire to and so any course of action advised on the grounds of avoiding it's loss has normative force already. But when you say "you ought not do Y because is leads to a loss of Freedom B", there's no such self-evident manifestation of people's aspiration. People do not regularly risk their lives in aspiration of Freedom B. You need to provide a reason why we should aspire to Freedom B because it is not already self-evident that we do.
I think that when one reaches for that, one finds not ground but bootstrap
Hmmm....perhaps. I wonder if Kant knew the word. He certainly maintained the necessity, hence the validity, of causality. The prime intellectual conception of causality being, of course, freedom. And just as no unconditioned causality in Nature can be discovered, so too is it impossible to prove the reality of freedom as a purely intellectual causality. A form of bootstrapping, indeed, but perhaps logically permissible. Perhaps? If not that, then what?
“....Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed to every rational being. I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory...”
Reply to tim wood :heart: I love your OP. Absolutely correct and when that is not understood as a truth and it is not passed on by the culture, there can not be liberty.
Unfortunately, the US has forgotten what morals have to do with liberty and it is becoming a paranoid police state. When I became frustrated trying to do a money transfer at Walmart, I was told by the women at the service counter and someone supposed to be the manager that they have been trained to watch out for fraud. Well good for them. Better training in customer service would make the store more active. But it is not just Walmart, how about when we make a business call and get the message the phone call may be recorded to assure quality assurance purposes. How sad the employers do not trust their employees and think they must be kept under surveillance. Not even dentists and doctors are treated respectfully, but they too are expected to follow orders from the office manager and policy just like uneducated laborers.
Liberal education as we had in the past, beginning with the first grade, would correct this problem because it would create a culture that embraced what you said in the OP. The more everything is kept in a file, and records are checked, and people are kept under surveillance, the worse things get and this is what we defended our democracies against in two world wars. Today China is a model of government control of people, but the US is not far behind.
Deleted UserJanuary 05, 2021 at 15:57#4850990 likes
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What do you mean by "raw capacity". You speak as if freedom has a meaning other than being able to do whatever we want. Pray tell, what is this other meaning?
Laugh, believing we are free to do anything we want seems to lack awareness of consequences. Because there are consequences resulting from what we do, we are not exactly free. Sooner or later the wrongs will come back to bite us.
Deleted UserJanuary 05, 2021 at 16:26#4851040 likes
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Nor do I find in this any ground whatsoever that relativism might survive in.
Agreed, here is no room for relativism with respect to freedom as a necessary intellectual conception. It is worth remembering “intellectual” just indicates a conception having nothing to do with sensibility, the conceptions of which are always empirical, which in turn means there are physical objects subsumed under them. Freedom has no physical object, obviously; it is nonetheless an object of pure practical reason.
The relativism resides in the will of the subject, of which freedom is merely the ground of the will’s capacity to author moral laws to which that subject obligates himself.
I am not sure Kant would say that there even are situations where you cannot do your duty. If you cannot do something, it cannot really be considered your duty. What makes your actions free is then choosing your duty.
I apologize for being so gross, but what comes to mind is if you can not get your zipper down you can not pee. But nature isn't so reasonable and sometimes we pee before we are ready. That does not change the fact that is preferable to wait until the zipper is down and our body parts are correctly positioned. No matter what, our duty is to do our best to control what happens even though it is possible something may go wrong.
Reply to tim wood Thanks but he took way too long to get to the bottom line. Did he ever mention what education has to do with this and what the 1958 National Defense Education Act has to do with the US ending the transmission of its culture? That is, ending education for good moral judgment and leaving moral training to the church. We now live with a Christian mythology and do not know our history from Athens to the United States. "The Founding Myth- Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American" by Andrew L. Seidel.
Thank you for spreading the information that is sadly lacking in the US. If we do not correct the education wrong, very soon, our democracy will be forgotten because our young have no idea of what it once was to be a citizen in the United States to have liberty without authority over us and without constant surveillance. Every school should have a Statue of Liberty and every student should understand why she holds and torch and a book.
We all need to know, only highly moral people can have liberty, for the same reason we keep poorly trained dogs on a leash in the city. We ended education for good moral thinking and now we are on a leash and under surveillance and this could be the end of being an international leader.
You’ve shown adequately why one shouldn’t appeal to the dictionary. At best dictionaries record current usage of a term, not what it should or should not mean, nor what it has meant in the past or what it might might mean in the future. It’s ridiculous to confine a discussion to a dictionary definition.
But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want...
I enjoy your take on duty and freedom, but I depart from the logic after we leave Kant’s thinking and venture into your own.
If I recall correctly, Kant mostly limits his coercion to those who hinder freedom, so I’m not sure he would advocate penalizing those “who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want”.
I think it’s laudable to say one has a duty to be safe and avoid the risk of harm, and one is free to do so, but once this principle is forced upon others or they are penalized for risk, I think we have the realm of freedom into its opposite.
Deleted UserJanuary 05, 2021 at 19:09#4851570 likes
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Antony NicklesJanuary 05, 2021 at 22:50#4851750 likes
Following Kant (and subject to correction on the details), the argument here is that freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else. * * * Duty, for the moment, is just what reason tells us ought to done.... But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want... And I think the logic of the thing compels agreement. Yes?
A very important discussion currently, so thank you for the post. What sparked my curiosity was the idea of duty and whether there is any compulsion. First, there is the distinction between the rational and emotional, or (Hume's) moral sense/innate moral judgment. I would argue that we can bypass this and still have a personal moral decision bound to reasonable action.
Starting with the idea that duty is "what reason tells us ought to [be] done", I would point out that this frames our moral decisions as occurring beforehand; rationally coming to a morality--a defined moral standard (in Kant's case), or theory, or the setting of what is a moral/immoral act (through authority, agreement, or other process, etc.--"regularity" Kant says). Morality and the "ought" have their place, but, like much of the moral, they have no force (apart from moralism, punishment, shame, etc.). I can make a case for what you ought to do (like Kant), and even have reasons that make sense (including internal coherency, categories or levels or rationality, etc.), but that does not ensure anyone will do what they ought to (see, e.g., Dostoyevsky). The same applies to the Good, though I believe teleology makes sense in relation to an object, say, in bettering our institutions.
Instead, imagine a case after our morality (beyond Good and Evil, as Nietzsche says)--a moral moment. As Cavell would say, when we do not know what to do; we are at a loss despite our deontological rules. Part of the picture here is that we are standing in the present, with a current context. And by this I do not mean a pre-determined context as in some thought-puzzle; a context that is as full and deep as the entire world, and that includes not only physical circumstances, but also our morality, all the distinctions we make and could make, and, most importantly, us as an unfinished work. One of Emerson, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche's important contributions is that our action defines us; we are not here good/bad, right/wrong, but lazy, selfish, courageous, etc. Wittgenstein talks about "continuing a series" and taking an "attitude". Our action reflects on us; so consequences matter, but when we come to the end of a rule, who we are is at stake. Sometimes even, as Nietzsche and Thoreau point out, the "immoral" act is the necessary act.
So whatever moral "force" there is, it is not (only) immorality, punishment, or wrong/bad, but our responsibility (to ourselves, our words, our actions), our integrity--not so much our reputation, as our character--our moral identity, in a sense. People, obviously, sometimes don't care about these things (nor do they have to), but they are nevertheless subject to this human condition in the moral realm. As I have said in my post on Witt's lion quote--when we come to the end of knowledge of the Other's pain, we either accept or reject them (their moral claim on us). He says, "My attitude towards [them] is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that [they have] a soul." p. 178. We don't have knowledge that they have a soul, we treat them as if they do (or not), but the point being that we are in the mix here, our human frailty and possibility.
Now if our course of action is not defined (by, say, rules) ahead of time, nor by others (entirely); if we are lost and our character is on the line, what is our duty? If we can not rely on rationality to tell us what to do (should do)--say, definitively, certainly, "objectively", as it were, without our "person" being involved (though not emotionally/"subjectively")--are there criteria for determining our duty in that moment? Now here, all the moral philosophers I have read spend most of their effort pushing against simple morality/moralism (Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Cavell, Emerson) so, what came to me first, actually, was the Bhagavad-Gita. Not that I agree with the answers themselves, nor feel that ours is a theological argument, but the situation and the type of discussion is an example of the type of grounds/criteria for a "reasonable" determination of our duty.
The case is that Arunja is going to war against his own family, and he is filled with doubt, pity, grief, etc., and turns to his "charioteer" Krishna for advice (imagine he is talking to himself). Krishna does not make a case for war (say, a "just" war), nor does he rely on how one should treat others--it is not a discussion of ends nor means. As part of the discussion, Arjuna keeps asking how he will know what to do, and Krishna is left with only being able to show Arjuna "his totality"--here again imagine Krishna is Arjuna's own voice to himself--to which Aruna says "You [I, as it were] alone fill the space" (20). It is similar to how Job's questioning is finally left only with the vision of the Leviathan--turning him back on himself to provide the answer.
Arjuna asks what defines a person whose insight is sure (54). They discuss discipline, detachment from emotions and goals, necessity, what differentiates an act from a motion, the need to ask questions, reflection, and the partial nature of our world's concepts and outcomes (only made whole by our action). Krishna advises "knowing the field", which is a way of saying the lay-of-the-land, which I take as making explicit the criteria of the (then-present) situation as well as of our concepts of action, courage, selfishness, flippancy, thoughtfulness, being reasonable, etc. These are criteria for defining a person in light of their actions. I submit that our duty is found in this space and the context and the ways our character/"humanity" is judged, not as right or wrong or good and bad, but nevertheless as rational (reasonable), rigorous, careful, detailed--as if our approach to a moral moment required an ethical epistemology.
Are we bound to our duty? In this sense we are; we are bound to our act. In these ways we are more responsible than just to rules/laws; we are, in a sense, created by our actions and finished as well (to a particular conception of ourselves). (The fact that here there are excuses and mitigation--such as lack of freedom to do what we decide is our duty--aides the point.) I believe these are not traditional philosophical rationale, but ordinary, everyday criteria. The "logic of the thing [that] compels agreement" is that we are disappointed by people, we no longer trust them, we believe they are fools, braggarts, cowards, etc.; that they made their choice in a moral moment thoughtlessly, hastily, self-servingly, recklessly, on a whim, etc. Do they care? Maybe not. Nonetheless, it can be true.
Jack CumminsJanuary 05, 2021 at 23:03#4851770 likes
Reply to Antony Nickles
I think that your argument is very detailed in analysis and manages to connect the whole area of duty on the level of motivation with the actual practice of moral actions. This moves the understanding of ethics beyond the apparent conflict between the deontological and utilitarian approaches of Kant vs. J S Mill. The two have most often been seen as in opposition to one another and I believe that you have succeeded in offering a way of bridging the two viewpoints.
Deleted UserJanuary 06, 2021 at 04:04#4852170 likes
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Laugh, believing we are free to do anything we want seems to lack awareness of consequences. Because there are consequences resulting from what we do, we are not exactly free. Sooner or later the wrongs will come back to bite us
Google definition of "freedom": the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. Freedom is precisely how it's been defined but the actual situation on the ground may vary. Read the fine print :joke:
On a more serious note, one has to draw a distinction between what we mean by freedom and to what degree we possess it. These two are entirely different things. One - the meaning of freedom - represents our conception, expectation, and perhaps even our hope and the other - the freedom we possess - is reality's constraining, modifying, limiting effect on us.
Of course you might say that the facts as they stand matter - we have to mind the consequences of how we act, speak, and think - and that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom. True but notice a simple fact. Would you call this situation, having to walk on eggshells as it were, always mindful of the consequences of our acts, speech, and thoughts, freedom? No, right? I rest my case.
Therefore, applying the above two parameters, I postulate the following:
Mark realizes that, due to pollution, over harvesting, habitat destruction, over population, and the lack of meaningful change to rectify these problems, the earth will no longer be able to sustain life, human or otherwise, within the next three hundred years. Mark, being an exceedingly talented geneticist, has the ability to create a virus which will eliminate 75% of the human population over the next hundred years. There is no suffering to speak of, simply a massive reduction in the ability to reproduce and the resulting population decline. This action will result in the betterment of future generations as well as restoring global balance and harmony.
Duty suggests that Mark release his virus, despite his personal feelings on the issue. He is aware of both outcomes, elimination of everyone (no action on his part) or elimination of 75% of humanity (action on his part). Good will (ensuring that life goes on) informs Mark's Duty to Act, which is supported by reason (Continuation of life over the cessation of life), and therefore, the act that Ought to be done.
And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant.
And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant.
There you have it, folks. Perhaps the greatest thinker since Aristotle, personally responsible for the last real paradigm shift in modern philosophy, develops a moral theory with so many holes in it a ten-year-old can blow it up with a single existential possibility.
Schopenhauer is probably wondering why he never thought of it; Hegel first, then Quine, both want to be remembered as having thought it already.
“....[f]or non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems?—?save perhaps the existence of Kantians....”
(Rorty, 1982)
On the vulgar understanding’s forays into the academic:
“.....a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions.....”
(CPR A61/B86)
Still....one remains free to think whatever he likes. (Sigh)
Deleted UserJanuary 06, 2021 at 16:40#4853730 likes
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A very important discussion currently, so thank you for the post. What sparked my curiosity was the idea of duty and whether there is any compulsion. First, there is the distinction between the rational and emotional, or (Hume's) moral sense/innate moral judgment. I would argue that we can bypass this and still have a personal moral decision bound to reasonable action.
This would be highly dependent on our culture, associations, and the books we read. Social animals have what some call a pre-morality. They are wired for group behavior. They have different learning capabilities, with chimps having more ability to learn than baboons, however, animals can transmit culture to each other. They do not have the language essential to the thinking humans do, and we are not born with this language, nor are we born knowing the concepts essential to moral thinking and we aren't born knowing the high order thinking skills. Any "personal moral decision bound to reasonable action" is dependant on what we learn and because our circumstances are different, our sense of morality can be different.
This is where the higher-order thinking skills come in. That is the learned ability to reason through our choices and make decisions. The US focused on teaching these skills, and used the Conceptual Method, and had education for good moral judgment until the 1958 National Defense Education Act. Now the US has the reactionary politics Germany had. The US replaced its education with the German model. The best way to learn history is to experience and the next few days, months, year- will be very interesting. :grin: Morality based on how we feel instead of how we think, leads to power struggles not a high standard of morality.
Deleted UserJanuary 06, 2021 at 16:45#4853760 likes
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Deleted UserJanuary 06, 2021 at 16:49#4853780 likes
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Google definition of "freedom": the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. Freedom is precisely how it's been defined but the actual situation on the ground may vary. Read the fine print :joke:
On a more serious note, one has to draw a distinction between what we mean by freedom and to what degree we possess it. These two are entirely different things. One - the meaning of freedom - represents our conception, expectation, and perhaps even our hope and the other - the freedom we possess - is reality's constraining, modifying, limiting effect on us.
Of course you might say that the facts as they stand matter - we have to mind the consequences of how we act, speak, and think - and that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom. True but notice a simple fact. Would you call this situation, having to walk on eggshells as it were, always mindful of the consequences of our acts, speech, and thoughts, freedom? No, right? I rest my case.
It certainly is not my fault if the masses are ignorant of reality and what reasoning has to do with knowing universal law and the importance of living by the laws of nature. :grin:
I am having a huge problem with the limited education we have had and the changed meanings of words and spell-check is especially horrifying. I am horrified by how technology has changed our understanding of words and appears to be restricting our awareness of concepts. You might want to reconsider what being technologically correct is doing to our understanding of life.
Your distinction between freedom and the freedom we possess is interesting, but when I open the present of your thought, the box is empty. It is a word game without substance because if we do not understand cause and effect and the limits of our freedom, things can go very wrong, so I don't think separating cause and effect thinking from our understanding of freedom is a good idea. Yes, I do say "the facts as they stand matter". :kiss:
" that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom."
:kiss: Please, consider what I said about technological correctness. I think education, as focused on technology as the education we have had, is not education for science, and that it is deadly. We have a culture change and I wish the discussion of that could expand. We are about to experience the results of that culture change resulting from the 1958 change in education and I don't think we are going to like it. Our understanding of freedom and duty is nothing as it once was! We have fragments of that past in old books that we can not find in the books written by a technologically correct society. My grandmother's generation is long dead and loosing them is a terrible loss to us! Her father sold the family's beautiful home on the lake, and his business and he became a laborer and he paid off all the investors in the business he had until his business partner embezzled the companies money. In their day, honor was more important than money. This was clearly obvious in my grandmother's character and I have seen it in others that were of her generation. Being with these people was completely different than what we experience today. Today's understanding of freedom has nothing to do with honor and that is a terrible thing!
Therefore, applying the above two parameters, I postulate the following:
Mark realizes that, due to pollution, over harvesting, habitat destruction, over population, and the lack of meaningful change to rectify these problems, the earth will no longer be able to sustain life, human or otherwise, within the next three hundred years. Mark, being an exceedingly talented geneticist, has the ability to create a virus which will eliminate 75% of the human population over the next hundred years. There is no suffering to speak of, simply a massive reduction in the ability to reproduce and the resulting population decline. This action will result in the betterment of future generations as well as restoring global balance and harmony.
Duty suggests that Mark release his virus, despite his personal feelings on the issue. He is aware of both outcomes, elimination of everyone (no action on his part) or elimination of 75% of humanity (action on his part). Good will (ensuring that life goes on) informs Mark's Duty to Act, which is supported by reason (Continuation of life over the cessation of life), and therefore, the act that Ought to be done.
And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant.
Duty and honor go hand in hand. You are smart but what you wrote lacks wisdom. Your story associates doing the smart thing with killing which most certainly would not be considered honorable and this kind of thinking is exactly what is wrong in the US today. :rage: Education for a technological society with unknown values has destroyed the democracy we once had when we had education for good moral judgment.
Antony NicklesJanuary 06, 2021 at 18:23#4853900 likes
I quibble on the word "epistemology." If you mean methods by which we know, I agree,
Method is basically what I am talking about, though I would say that we do gain something. "Knowledge" is a loaded word in ethics, but we do gain insight (even, of ourselves), a larger perspective, and, say, an understanding of the criteria of our concepts and the context we find ourselves in, etc.
I suggest we are always lost and never not lost, anything else is mere illusion propped up by a seeming regularity: we think we know, and for a while win some of our bets, but our knowledge is spurious.
Although we might not always know the criteria for something (what is indicative of "walking" is one example Wittgenstein gives"), it might be a little cynical to say we are "always lost". This is only to say though that not everything is a moral moment, the same as to say not every motion is an action, or every action is "intended". We normally go along saying things and doing things, and only when something is fishy (Austin/Cavell say) do we ask "What did you mean?" or "Did you intend to do that?" The things we do and say being, not illusion, but merely not usually conceptually investigated (looking at their criteria and use). And I would claim knowledge is not so much false, as limited--it comes to an end, say, with respect to the separate Other (which I take up in my examination of Wittgenstein's lion quote).
Our duty then to be informed and self-informed as best we can be, reason being our best and only true navigational aid. And it seems to me Kant finds morality in reason, at least as much as with reason.
I agree that what I am suggesting is both an examination of the world, and learning about ourself. And also agree that Kant is trying to find morality in and with reason, but my argument here is that his is still an effort to solve the moral problem beforehand. It is also to deny the human contribution (thrown out with the desire to remove emotion, inclination, etc. (the "subjective") from moral decision-making); seeing the partial role of rational rules and criteria is to acknowledge the human standing up for what matters to them (or not), subject to the consequences to their identity, character, answerability, etc.--completing the circle Emerson would say.
And this is precisely what the mariner does, not just in storm but always. He reads his moment, the vibration of the wind in his lines, the colour of the sky, and what experience tells him. His decision then at that moment being always and forever correct, notwithstanding what comes over the horizon at him.
You may enjoy Stanley Cavell's essay in "The Quest for the Ordinary", in which he uses The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to investigate the loss caused by the line Kant draws between us and the thing-in-itself.
Antony NicklesJanuary 06, 2021 at 18:55#4853940 likes
Whoops, responded to a response that was not to my post.
Unless you knew people of my grandmother's generation, I don't really care what you think. It is like talking about being an overwhelmed nurse in a hospital that is overwhelmed without having the experience. I have no idea why some people appear to worship Nietzsche. Nietzsche and Hegel got Germany into big trouble. Not directly but as others adopted their ideas and Prussia organized the whole of Germany into an industrial/military complex, we saw the horrors man can create when they love power and not wisdom.
This is not quick judgment but a very passionate judgment. The US and its allies defeated Germany in two world wars and then the US adopted the German (Prussian) models of bureaucracy and education and replaced classic education presenting Greek and Roman philosophers with education for technology and German philosophers, Now the US is what it defended it is democracy against. It no longer understands rule by reason but has reactionary politics as Germany did and I think we are in for a walk through Hades.
Exactly want is my part in the US being a Military Industrial Complex with reactionary politics and a culture that has lost sight of morality? :chin:
Antony NicklesJanuary 06, 2021 at 22:29#4854850 likes
["[Antony's argument] that we can bypass ['the distinction between the rational and emotional, or (Hume's) moral sense/innate moral judgment'] and still have a personal moral decision bound to reasonable action"] would be highly dependent on our culture, associations, and the books we read. Social animals have what some call a pre-morality. They are wired for group behavior.... we are not born with [cultural/thinking] language, nor are we born knowing the concepts essential to moral thinking and we aren't born knowing the high order thinking skills. Any "personal moral decision bound to reasonable action" is dependant on what we learn and because our circumstances are different, our sense of morality can be different.
This is where the higher-order thinking skills come in. That is the learned ability to reason through our choices and make decisions. ...Morality based on how we feel instead of how we think, leads to power struggles not a high standard of morality.
I agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.
I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.).
Antony NicklesJanuary 06, 2021 at 22:54#4854960 likes
Unless you knew people of my grandmother's generation, I don't really care what you think.
Well, I deeply apologize; I got an email that I thought was you replying to my post, but it was, instead, you replying to someone else's (a little new to this). I thought it was strange, but I made some poor assumptions, and I'm sorry that I offended you. If it helps, my mother lived through the war in England, and my grandmother the century before last.
I have no idea why some people appear to worship Nietzsche.
As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit).
Again, my sincere apologies. As a token of peace, I offer that you might (if you can forgive him for basically being a Nazi) find Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology” interesting. He has a very dark view of the influence of technology, roughly, "enframing" (narrowing) our view of humanity and nature as only a means (echoing Marx).
Deleted UserJanuary 07, 2021 at 00:09#4855420 likes
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Your distinction between freedom and the freedom we possess is interesting, but when I open the present of your thought, the box is empty. It is a word game without substance because if we do not understand cause and effect and "the limits of our freedom[/u], things can go very wrong, so I don't think separating cause and effect thinking from our understanding of freedom is a good idea. Yes, I do say "the facts as they stand matter". :kiss:
But you don't get it. The fact that you consider our existing condition as just one in which we have to deal with, as you said, "the limits of our freedom" indicates that you subscribe to the definition of freedom I provided, freedom as "the power to act, speak, and think as one wants". Then you go on to criticize the very definition that you believe is true - nothing wrong in that if you're suicidal of course. The present of my thought may have been empty but yours is incoherent. I guess something's better than nothing :smile:
But what is wrong with it? Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly.
I went back to the beginning of the OP to see where this started. I’m assuming the example you gave is about freedom without duty, or what some just call freedom, When you say the motorcyclist hurts “ everyone, and some greatly” how do you mean that?
Deleted UserJanuary 07, 2021 at 03:27#4856400 likes
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What I was getting at is are there circumstances someone might harm themselves without hurting others? Like someone without any family commits suicidal?
I think there is a flaw in the argument that only the harm to others matters. It is a bare assertion. If I harm myself or if another harms me, I am harmed in either case. What distinguishes them so that one is immoral and the other is permissible?
Note we aren't talking about formulating laws for regulating our society but speaking about ethical principles.
8) In order to act morally, one must be free to act.
9) Duty is the obligation to act in accordance with morality.
10) Realization of purpose under morality is the highest aim of mankind.
11) It follows, then, that moral actions are the only actions of moral worth, that they fall under duty, and that to act in accordance with them requires freedom, and that to the extent that freedom is diminished, the individual is not free.
But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact.
The problem is, I think, that you’re using two meanings of freedom. Is, in your opinion, the freedom to do what you want related to Kant’s idea? It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP.
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Deleted UserJanuary 07, 2021 at 15:11#4858010 likes
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agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.
I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.).
I agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.
I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.).
That is some heavy thinking. A couple of points hit a nerve. Mostly at this moment, I can not stop thinking of all those good people who stormed the capital of the US. I must be careful how I speak of this because I could be so easily misunderstood. I want you to know your post resulted in me leaving the forum to write a letter to the editor and I thank you for the thoughts that lead to that.
The people who stormed the Capital were fighting for our freedom, and I think we should consider what this action has to do with being proud Americans and proud of how our nation began with a rebellion. In the South, some people still wave the rebel flag, and we need to consider what that means to them and how it ties into being a patriotic citizen. I want to point out that the concept of freedom and duty in the South has meant these people strongly support the defense of the US when we go to war. Dumping our rage on them now without understanding their sense of cause is our wrong. Not that they were right, but let us be realistic. We have manifested a military-industrial complex that is disenfranchising people and rapidly changing our social order, and this just leads to the craziness we have been experiencing. This is not all bad but our lack of awareness is terrible!
"Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty."
That is true but, we have been disenfranchised. It is as Eisenhower warned us to let happen because the 1958 change in education made this so. Since 1958 the young for been prepared for "group think" and reliance on experts. We have extended the military order from our federal bureaucracy to every institution, and disempowered citizens. Because the citizens have absolutely no knowledge of the change in bureaucratic order and what this has to do the change in education, and the social, economic and political ramifications of this, they are not conscious of what has gone so terribly wrong but they are aware of the powerlessness. This turns us against each other.
People don't read long post so I will stop here. At this moment in history, talking about being born into a moral/cultural/language, seems to miss the reality of the US today. Our morality, culture, language, is in complete turmoil right now and we are killing each other trying to save our democracy. I am hating myself for not being a better writer and not completing the book I started long ago. We are unaware of why things have gone crazy and I hate myself for my failure to do raise awareness.
Well, I deeply apologize; I got an email that I thought was you replying to my post, but it was, instead, you replying to someone else's (a little new to this). I thought it was strange, but I made some poor assumptions, and I'm sorry that I offended you. If it helps, my mother lived through the war in England, and my grandmother the century before last.
No apology is necessary. I think we should recognize we are coming from different cultures and that this may lead to misunderstanding. We have lost sight of the fact that can be more than one truth because there most certainly are different situations, and what is true in your situation may not be true in mine. My very old logic book makes this clear, but that is no longer the logic we are working with, therefore, we have intense conflicts and even violence. Education for technology has to led us thinking something is either true or it is false, and now we are tearing each other apart and tending towards violence instead of reason.
"As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit)."
I am sure you did not mean to insult me, by saying I do not have a sincere desire to learn. I will point out, as my very old logic book did, that there are too many things for us to learn for anyone to know all of them. No human being can learn everything. Nietzsche does not come to the top of my list something I must study, however, that does not mean I have no desire to learn. How the masses understood being supermen has come down through history as a nightmare that is regrettable. Nietzsche's influence on society and the impact of rapidly advancing technology has backed humanity into a corner, and I think Greek and Roman philosophy might better prepare us to make the transition to the New Age, better than Nietzsche and Hegel. Not that what they said has no value, but it did not lead to the democracy of the US. It has however influenced the US ever since Eisenhower put the military-industrial complex in place. It is far better for humanity for us to strive to be the best humans we can be, instead of us being driven to be supermen. I will add, women being liberated to be as men is not as good as them being empowered as women. As civilians and police clash, we need the feminine force.
Again, my sincere apologies. As a token of peace, I offer that you might (if you can forgive him for basically being a Nazi) find Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology” interesting. He has a very dark view of the influence of technology, roughly, "enframing" (narrowing) our view of humanity and nature as only a means (echoing Marx).
Now that appears to be along my line of interest. It is insane that we fight for our liberty and give it up for technology! Not just technology like our computers and the web, but bureaucratic technology as well. The changed bureaucratic technology has shifted power to government and disenfranchised us. To use the Christian term, this is the beast on steroids!
Unfortunately, Christians tend to study their Bibles instead of reality. If they paid as much attention to reality we might all be working together much better than we are. Right now the US divide between science and religion is ripping the nation apart and we must get back to understanding why our Statue of Liberty holds a book and what science has to do with morals and liberty.
But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact.
— tim wood
The problem is, I think, that you’re using two meanings of freedom. Is, in your opinion, the freedom to do what you want related to Kant’s idea? It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP.
I love the debate the two of you are having.
If we want government services we must give up a degree of freedom. If we are going to rent instead of own our homes, we give up some freedom. If we want to use computers and the internet, we must give up a degree of freedom. Even if we want medical care we must give up a degree of freedom because we can be denied medical care and just about anything else if we are not cooperative.
Antony Nickles
suggested reading Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology”.
He tried to make amends with me by saying he was influenced by his mother and grandmother who experienced the war years. I wonder if he noticed their expectation of everyone accepting their authority instead of waiting to know the policy and what they must do to comply with it?
Reply to Athena Actually my story has no one killing anyone, simply reducing the ability to procreate. No suffering for anyone existing. Indeed even the knowledge of the reduction would not be a factor as the change would take place over a number of generations.
My story was not to disparage the teaching of Kant, but to point out that the perspective and values of the individual determine the interpretation and application of Kant's framework.
Reply to tim wood My thought experiment is to point out that the interpretation of a framework is based on the individual doing the interpretation: values, perspectives, experiences. All of which will be used to determine the appropriate course of action (appropriate as the Actor determines, not as the Audience determines). This effectively defines the underlying difficulty in determining both freedom and duty (among a great many other things) as each of these are values based on primarily personal values. The framework provided by Kant is helpful as a guide, however the application is dependent on the actor's interpretation of it.
Deleted UserJanuary 11, 2021 at 02:47#4869910 likes
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Actually my story has no one killing anyone, simply reducing the ability to procreate. No suffering for anyone existing. Indeed even the knowledge of the reduction would not be a factor as the change would take place over a number of generations.
My story was not to disparage the teaching of Kant, but to point out that the perspective and values of the individual determine the interpretation and application of Kant's framework.
Hum, presently international organizations are attempting to reduce procreation by giving women jobs. When women have jobs other than caring for family, and children are most likely going to become adults, people have fewer children. So in your story, how is procreation reduced?
There are very, very few, Right and Wrongs which are "plain wrong" or "plain right". The rest are conditional, and are not so difficult to determine. They are, however, exceedingly difficult to sell to people who are not interested in accepting someone else's version of right and wrong however.
Freethought and karma yoga are the two components of freedom. Chogyam Trungpa in his book The Myth of Freedom talks of meditation in action as being a prerequisite to freedom. Karma yoga is clarity of self as self-action.
Freethought is the honesty to choose the best or most fulfilling choice in the moment, neverminding what was good a minute or seconds ago. This honesty opens the mind to information otherwise unapproachable even by studious minds.
Reply to tim wood In simple terms: A thing is wrong if, outside of a fantastic theoretical model, there can be no justification for said thing. I used rape as an example because, outside of some bizarre circumstance wherein only one woman is fertile and, for some reason, procreation of the race is required (no, we don't know why) and she refuses to agree to the act...you see the ridiculous level one must go to to potentially justify said action, therefore, it is, at a base level, wrong. Other wrongs can be rationalized and justified under much less ridiculous circumstances, therefore, arguably, not actually wrong, so much as requiring justification for said action, ergo; conditionally right.
Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly. There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm.
"But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” - Hunter S. Thompson
Quoth Zizek, whom I sure you can't stand, "freedom hurts". I don't think that you have to give up riding motorcycles because of Kant, if that's what you're asking. For someone, perhaps?
Personal safety is not an issue when you are fully responsible.
With road safety, the difference is, a crew of paramedics and police officers are responsible for removing your corpse. They are also responsible for reporting bad news to your family.
Because others have responsibility for your actions, they should also have an authority on them... Wow that's really hard for me to right, as I'm big on safety awareness.
Personally, I think that as long as I am aware enough in a angerous situation, then I shouldn't have to wear gloves/goggles etc. But usually it's the employer who is responsible if I do hurt myself. So then it nakes sense that they should have authority on my minimum safety requirements.
In saying all that, I'm free to ride a motorbike with no helmet, gloves or glasses, on my own peice of land.
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Deleted UserJanuary 23, 2021 at 03:26#4917540 likes
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Reply to tim wood
Upon a second reading, it still seems to be about how the categorical imperative bars you from the freedom to ride motorcycles. I don't know. Whatever.
Deleted UserJanuary 23, 2021 at 17:12#4918870 likes
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Reply to tim wood
Well, now that you said all of that, I'm not sure what this has to do with Kant. To me, the supposed right to put yourself at risk does, to varying degrees, exist, but, from a Kantian perspective, it would seem that you shouldn't, as you shouldn't will that everyone else do the same.
Deleted UserJanuary 24, 2021 at 02:19#4921040 likes
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Reply to tim wood
Kant seemingly makes sense. It all makes sense if you believe in some sort of abstract transcendent ideal and in a quasi-eschatological "kingdom of ends". The categorical imperative, however, deprives Ethics of circumstance. There is a world of difference between stealing an old Gibson that was the parting gift of a musician's late mentor, stealing a pair of expensive headphones produced by multinational business conglomerate, and stealing a loaf of bread because you are hungry and poor. That you shouldn't steal because you shouldn't will that all of society steals, thereby resulting in that it becomes comprised of factional sets of feuding marauding bands, breaks very quickly down when you don't assume that people need to given universal laws so as to ensure that society doesn't disintegrate. People are entirely capable of understanding that an act is made within a given situation, analyzing its circumstances, and determining whether or not the act was ethical.
Kant provides some of the world's best moral framework, without realizing that no such thing can exist. To use the extreme example, in Nazi Germany, it would seem to be easy to say that people shouldn't lie, as, when you have a society that is predicated upon a lie, the effect can be catastrophic. What about under interrogation by the Gestapo, though? To me, to Kant, it makes no difference as to whether I am under interrogation by the Gestapo or have been brought before a human rights tribunal. Perhaps, I do misunderstand him, though.
Emmanuel Levinas has a short parable that I have always liked, called The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights. The poignant double-entendre at the end has led me to what someone once described as "nihilistic optimism". Ethics is like that, in a sense, without a thought. To create an entire methodology, however, predicated upon some sort of innate good will and deprived of subjectivity almost entirely, to me, just seems to be somewhat absurd, if not somehow both condescending and naive.
To return to your original question, though, you do owe it to those who care about you not to take any suicidal impulse too far. Some people never give up mountaineering, however. Should they fall, and almost all good climbers do fall someday if they don't give it up, is that really the sort of thing that you should hold against them?
Money is an issue. Especially is the safety gear adds upto $300+.
Safety awareness and skill are far superior as a tool for risk reduction. After 8 years in the forestry(New Zealand highest safety risk/mortality industry) its clear that safety gear is limited at protecting someone from harm.
Preferably, you want someone who is always alert, has skill and/or experience. With all these attributes, you don't need any safety gear. When someone dies, it's usually because they were lacking in one of these areas, and the safety gear they were wearing was absolutely useless.
Wearing a seat belt doesn't automatically make you immune to death by motor accident. I imagine the same attributes needed to reduce mortality in the forestry, would also reduce mortality on the roads.
Most safety gear only mitigates damage from an accident. Hi-vi's doesn't work very well, otherwise they'd make you wear it to cross the road. If I get into a motorbike accident that's intense enough to kill me, it would most likely kill me if I was wearing safety gear.
So then the question I ask, is who gets to define the amount of mitigation required for safety gear. Ie when riding a motorcycle, should I wear a helmet, gloves, goggles, fire retardent overalls, bullet proof vest and a titanium exoskeltal protection suit. Just the helmet? Just the helmet and gloves? I think the rider should get to decide.
Who do you think should decide what the rider should wear, on their own land. Once know this question then we can figure out what the level of mitigation should be, or perhaps you could answer both.
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I don't ask anyone to pay my bills. Nor do I want them too. This highlights another freedom removed, in an anti-capatilast fashion. I'm lucky to have a Grandfather who fought in WW2 so that I could have my freedom. Ie the freedom to ride with my hair out. (like he used too)
In Thailand, motorcyclist carry 3 or 4 passengers, each without a helmet too. Do you advocate, someone needs to take their freedoms, pay their bills so they have to get a scooter each and wear helmets?
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2021 at 19:47#4932450 likes
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Reply to tim wood
"Therefore, whoever tells a lie, however well intentioned he might be,
must answer for the consequences, however unforeseeable they were, and pay the penalty
for them even in a civil tribunal. This is because truthfulness is a duty which must be
regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would
be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted." - Immanuel Kant
By demanding adherence to a universal law in every given situation, Kant deprives Ethics of circumstance. On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives is his anticipation of this objection to his moral philosophy, but, I don't see how it holds up. Under interrogation by the Gestapo, Kant is effectively suggesting that you do not have a right to lie to them as you are bound by duty to uphold a moral law that everyone ought to abide by, namely that people shouldn't lie. In some cases, perhaps, it would be better to uphold whatever lofty ideals that you ascribe to and state them honestly, even when dealing with people who are extraordinarily vile, but I am of the opinion that it is of a veritable ethic for a person to tell the Gestapo anything that will keep them from finding the Jews or whomever else they are hiding. That you should always act as if you would will for such an act to become a universal law extrapolates the situations that give rise to Ethics beyond their circumstances via an appeal to an abstract ideal, which, referring to the non-existence of moral framework, I do not believe exists.
Responding to your question as to whether or not I am squandering your tax money with my federal student loans, the answer is yes, and it is because I don't give a flying fuck about how you feel about your money. I may even attempt to get society of your ilk to finance a postgraduate education if I can figure out how to. With that, I'll bid you adieu.
Deleted UserJanuary 26, 2021 at 22:17#4932770 likes
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Reply to tim wood
I'm only attempting to give you an understanding of my general attitude towards the ostensibly hard-earned wealth of sociopathic academics. As an ethical quandary, I give about as much thought as I do whether or not I should massacre apparently villainous creatures in a dungeon crawler, which isn't to say that there isn't some residual effect. On some level, I am so inclined to wonder as to just what contemporary hero myths suggest about our society, when, at least in most video games, they often rely upon the copious slaughter of mythological creatures that have been otherized. What I mean, though, is that it is something that I think about about as much as I do at the time in which it is happening, which is to say that it doesn't even enter the periphery of my thought. As to whether or not I should fire the thunder arrows at the water demon does not matter because I have already fired them.
"Again I may make a false statement when my purpose is to hide from another what is in my mind and when the latter can assume that such is my purpose, his own purpose being to make a wrong use of the truth. (...) and my untruth is not a lie because the thief knows full well that I will not, if I can help it, tell him the truth and that he has no right to demand it of me. But, [suppose I tell him], that I will tell him the truth, and I do not, am I then a liar?...to him [the thief] as an individual, I have done no injustice and he cannot complain; but I am nonetheless a liar in that my conduct is an infringement of the rights of humanity" (Kant, Lectures on Ethics, (2011) p. 227)..
Exactly. Both here and in On the Supposed Right to Lie, Kant is making the claim that the circumstances under which an Ethical act is made do not matter and affirming his more or less sole moral law, being the categorical imperative, which commands that, in every given situation that gives rise to Ethics, you should act as if you would will for your act to be in accordance with a universal law, effectively a refinement of the Golden Rule wherein you should do unto others as you should will for all of society to do unto itself, though highly qualified and delineated by Kant. I am not claiming that Kant claims that you owe it to the thief not to lie. I am claiming that Kant is claiming that you are bound by duty not to lie, regardless as to whether you are speaking with a thief or, let's say, an honest merchant. Kant, whom I admittedly have only read so much of, seems to have spent a great deal of time justifying that claim. What I suspect is that he did not successfully do so. Why I suspect this is that Kant effectively believed in ethical truths, what I have previously described as "abstract ideals", namely the a priori information that is supposed to be somehow deigned via "reason". Not only did he invoke reason as such, but he also exclusively categorized it as pertaining to such information in opposition to empirical information, which he more or less relegated to the domain of folk wisdom and, therefore, of a realm of thought that was beneath the field of Philosophy, which, to him, had culminated in his "transcendental idealism". I am of the opinions that such ethical truths can only exist via the invocation of the divine and that the divine does not exist. Without such commandments, as they effectively are, it is left up to humanity to decide what is right within any given situation by taking into consideration as many of its aspects as are possible, as we are both limited by subjectivity and time, one of which is, namely, its circumstances. As a general rule, I would suggest that an act is ethical if it has been made in good faith, which I don't intend to clarify, as it would take a very long time to properly delineate and I do plan on leaving this forum for a period of time, but, as per the connotations of the qualifier, would suggest that every ethical act requires a leap of faith. Unlike Kant, who posits that you can know what is right in so far that you are compelled to behave as such via the categorical imperative, I posit that Ethics is an experiment in right, effectively cultivating a good way of life, which arises because of situations and is, therefore, to varying degrees, delimited by their circumstances.
As the person to have also thought this was one, Jean-Paul Sartre, I am well aware that people like you have become so unwittingly taken by Ayn Rand's interpretation of Aristotle and critique of the Soviet Union that they entirely incapable of responding to such a practical ethical philosophy with anything but hysterics over the projected reign of quote unquote relativism, but I just can't save you from what the Central Intelligence Agency has done to Analytic Philosophy for you.
So as to eschew reference, as, for whatever reason, citing Continental Philosophers is believed to be akin to being a member of the Church of Scientology on this forum, situational ethics is just applied and expanded upon Empiricist ethical philosophy. It is, perhaps, notable that we do generally assume that people do have free will, but, that's about as concisely as I can clear up this general misunderstanding.
I do have other things to do, and, so, am going to leave this forum now. I hope that all is well and goes well for all of you, at least, in so far that I either can or should, and will talk to you probably in a couple of months from now. Until we meet again!
I wouldn't say its a difficult read. It does explain a lot about police officers thinking. I would have answered, no comment, but it has in brackets (in a situation when you must answer).
The final idea is a pessimistic over assumption, that you are automatically someone who does not have a duty to tell the truth, if you do not answer. If an officer askse questions, I tell him I'm busy... because I'm usually busy, and don't have time to play mind/word games. The article suggests that I'm potentially a liar, because I refuse to directly answer any questions, I show the lack of duty.
All in all, its an interesting stress test of ideas. But the principles are only valid in either an Utopia where every has a perfect moral code application, or it's other use is in law, which pretends to be perfect.
As it pertains to the topic, if you were to say, wearing this safety gear will save your life, then you are lying. Or if you say, it will reduce the risk of accident, or it will reduce injury, then you are also lying. Yet when safety gear is advocated as a necessity, the previous assumption are portrayed as true. The only truth is that, safety gear has a potential to reduce risk/injury as is proven by statistics. Wearing a helmet won't save you in a head to head with a truck.
Deleted UserJanuary 28, 2021 at 20:39#4939820 likes
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My argument, is that I have a duty, to exercise my inherited freedom. The less I exercise my rights and freedoms, the less I have.
Id wear a helmet on the road. I wouldn't wear one on a hilly, grassy farm. I could argue that it restricts the vision that I need for the more hazardous terrain, or livestock. But my argument is simply that, I have the right to do what I want on my own land.
My biggest gripe, is that politics dictate safety requirements. An Australian sued a company for his sun burn. Now its mandatory for most companies in Australia/New Zealand to wear fire retardant full cover overalls... In the blistering hot sun!! Before working in civil works, I'd been sun burnt a total of 3 times in my life. When working I civil works, I was sun burnt every year, because Im not stupid enough to wear fire retardant overalls when playing at the park on the holidays.
There's a whole list of detrimental PPE uses. Glasses when waterblasting in enclosed areas causes them to fog up, but too bad because they a few mandatory. Gloves in the forestry make it difficult to feel what your doing when reaching behind a tree.. Every job I've had, has some rediculous PPE requirement. But it's OK, because I signed up for the job, I will comply. In my own time, it's upto me. Freedom, means making up your own mind.
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Comments (148)
A more lovely example could not be presented of deciding in advance what one is going to consider right and wrong and then constructing some pseudo-logical monstrosity to justify it post hoc. Well done. I presume that was your objective...
I am not sure Kant would say that there even are situations where you cannot do your duty. If you cannot do something, it cannot really be considered your duty. What makes your actions free is then choosing your duty.
Quoting tim wood
This is a result of the negative conception of freedom as the freedom to be left alone which has come to dominate in Europe and the US. Here freedom is the freedom from all obligations and duties, mostly imagined as being imposed by the state or, more broadly, society.
I think it's important to consider how both conceptions came to be. Kant starts his from the bottom up. From the theoretical possibility of the freedom of will to it's practical application to the social conditions that create the "state of freedom".
Meanwhile, the "common sense" notion of freedom as freedom from interference is the result of social movements that were concerned with specific instances of interference and violence, from which they generalised.
As a result, the idea of personal freedom is mostly derived from legal concepts, such as the concept that all legal restriction require specific justification, which was then applied more generally to signify freedom.
I think a good way to start to point out why this is problematic is to start with situations that are commonly considered extremely unfree. Chattel slavery is an obvious one. At first glance, one might argue that chattel slavery represents the ultimate imposition of obligations and duties on the slave. But I think it's actually the opposite. Someone who is considered no different from a horse or cow cannot have duties or obligations. Their relationship to others, specifucally the "master", is purely one of naked ability - in this case ability to use force. I think this points towards the conclusion that freedom is not at all freedom from duty.
I can't make sense of this proposition, you seem to have used 'freedom' in two different ways and whilst I understand the latter, I'm unclear on the former. in "freedom from duty" I understand freedom to mean 'the absence of constraint caused by...' (in this case duty). But it would make no sense to have this meaning in the former use, since no constraint is given. So what is the use of 'freedom in it's first instance that you're trying to define by it's second use?
You're right, this isn't very clearly written. I'd say there are at least three different definitions for freedom: the theoretical freedom of will, acting in accordance with the principles of freedom and freedom as a result of a certain social organisation.
The latter is the most difficult to pin down, I would roughly describe it as a society that enables it's members to self-actualise to the largest extent possible.
This is an interesting area of discussion as the whole way in which law is sometimes seen as restrictive, while it can be protective too. The example of motorcycle helmets is a good one, and I have known someone who died of head injuries because he was not wearing a helmet.
It is questionable what would happen if some of the laws we had did not exist, such as rules against drink driving and using drugs. Would we be tempted to go and buy skunk weed if it was readily available in the supermarket and many of us end up with drug induced psychosis?
Perhaps we need some restrictions on us to protect us in exploring freedom. Of course, law is not straightforward and static, but evolves in the face of the complexities arising in legal cases.
At the finest reduction, this is correct. Just takes a lot of reducing to get there.
Quoting tim wood
And from that, everything else follows.
Theoretically.......
I'm of the opinion that Kant's entire philosophy is built on defining certain things as precisely what they are not, and maybe freedom is one of the best examples of this. I mean, intuitively, there are few things more oppressive for our emotions and our feeling of being free than having some duty imposed on us, especially a duty which we do not also desire to do. Isn't that what you're trying to get at with your helmet example? You have a duty to wear the helmet all the time, but it's unbearable because it restricts your freedom, so you cheat sometimes and take it off. Or is it the case that because there's a law, you don't even have a duty anymore because you are acting under the threat of being punished?
Long past the age, actually, and, finally. No need for further investigation.
Indulgence. Ehhhh....granting the authority of a particular moral philosophy doesn’t mean actually living by it. I’m pretty sure I haven't always lived up to the obligations necessarily integrated into mine.
You have a rough definition of duty, a constricting definition of reason, a to-brief discussion of the nature of freedom, one example that leaves out the bit about nothing else; and that's it.
Lock's version fo freedom - liberty, a much better term - is the capacity do act if one so wills, or to not act if one does not will. It is a power to have one's body do as one commands. Given the ubiquity of this account in our world, it will not do for you to simply state that freedom is freedom to do one's duty.
Freedom seems to have little to do with duty.
I suspect @Garth has something like this in mind...
But this definition of liberty seems fairly useless in practice, because everyone either has this capacity at all times - even at gunpoint - or they never have it. It's only real relevance would be to pathologic changes of the ability to form a will at all.
This leaves out all the practically important questions.
But isn't it also intuitively true that freedom involves the freedom from outside influences? From hunger, outside pressure, social norms? And can we not then go further and conclude that freedom also implies absence of motivations like fear or anger or any equally influential emotions? From there, it's only a small hop over to desires.
We can only feel free when we desire something, and upon experiencing emotion related to that desire, realize that our reasons for feeling this way are inadequate. The emotion that is felt falls back into an unexplained form, and consciousness is finally able to ask itself what it truly wants.
We continue to feel free as we plan out or new strategy either to desire something else or to go about getting our desired in a different way. But the feeling of freedom quickly breaks down after that and the thought process after that is indeterminate. Lots of things could happen, like getting frustrated, realizing you didn't really desire that end after all, satisfaction, simply getting distracted, or resignation.
But in that moment, we feel that we are causing whatever happens (self as cause), and that however it affects us is also in our control -- we have a predetermined notion of what will happen, not in the sense that we know exactly what will happen, but we've already made up our mind about how we will let it affect us (self as effect). Imagine a soldier summoning the courage to charge out of the trenches. He might die or might live, but he believes in that moment that he can accept whatever happens.
Quoting Echarmion
See! This is where Kant is sneaky. I'm not an expert, but I bet if I say that duties arising through the Categorical Imperative are outside influences, we would find that Kant insists this is all a principle of our reasoning and so is an inner influence of some type and not impinging on our freedom.
But actually maybe Kant's idea here is correct, or almost correct. Because I don't think any emotion can be understood without considering what consciousness thinks is good. In fact, our empathy for others doesn't depend very much on reading facial expressions but on predicting the motivations and intentions of others. Maybe if we don't do what is best we won't be free because we'll feel doubt, guilt, remorse, paranoia, etc.
Quoting Banno
This is no different than re-defining terms to refute an argument, rather than using the terms given by the argument and showing some conclusion of that argument doesn’t follow from them.
Locke’s liberty can never stand anywhere near Kant's freedom. It is dialectically absurd to use Locke to refute Kant, when they have entirely different domains supporting their respective philosophies. Locke, and by association, you and your raising arm, are concerned with empirical actions of the will for general purposes, while Kant is concerned with the pure a priori conditions under which the will acts, and then only those conditions and acts pursuant to a very specific, altogether singular, purpose.
Here’s your Word of the Day: Noogony. Don’t fall for it.
Cheers (?)
You seem to think there's an argument there, but I can't see it. The missing piece seems to be a presumption that doing one's duty is the only thing that one can choose freely; but as soon as this is stated, the contradiction is clear; if one must only choose to do one's duty, then that choice is not free.
So, set it out clearly for me.
With measurably greater Prussian intellectual verbosity of course, that is Kant’s exact closing stipulation in Groundwork.
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Quoting tim wood
Context helps, maybe:
“....In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expression), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions of reflection...”
————-
Quoting Banno
I already know the argument, so whether or not one is missing here doesn’t affect me much. Tim can handle it alright.
Since a cause implies an effect and an effect implies a cause, the only way to make sense of them is to have something which simultaneously determines both, which I call "force". A statistical correlation is not evidence of a cause-effect relationship because it is missing the force.
Quoting tim wood
I don't know. If God is a self, then he must be free. But selves are not always present in consciousness.
Yeah, you may be onto something here. One of the common criticisms of Kant is that he dismisses emotions pretty much out of hand. It was just obvious to Kant that reasoning was a) sufficiently different from emotions to be it's own category and b) should trump pure emotion as a motivation.
On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that some internal motivations must be privileged over others. Otherwise, we'd come to the absurd conclusion that since every influence does at some point turn into an internal motivation, even outside force would be considered "free".
And if we're going to privilege some internal motivations over others, reasoning seems a good candidate to choose.
Quoting Garth
I always found Kant's idea that freedom is doing what you think is right convincing. What higher expression of your self could there be?
A useful model of the world is useful because it has something to do with the world.
Quoting tim wood
Does freedom really have a more secure metaphysical status than causality? Can we be free if we are unable to cause anything?
What if it wasn’t a question of more secure, but rather, as secure?
Your post is a rather neat example of why I find definitions suspect, presenting nothing of how the word is actually used, but instead inventing esoteric verbalism.
You define freedom as the capacity to act according to one's duty. That's quite at odds with the definition given in those dictionaries that seek to set out how words are actually used, as opposed to how Tim wants them to be used.
So one is left to conclude that when Tim talks about freedom, he is not talking about the same thing as the rest of us. We can safely ignore what he has to say about, because he is not talking about freedom.
Quoting Isaac
Yep.
Quoting Garth
The post from Tim quoted here is further evidence for you, Garth.
The OP amounts to "Tim thinks we should do our duty". That is, it amounts to nothing of interest.
Quoting Banno
This assumes that two different definitions cannot later be shown to be logically equivalent. For example, a circle is "a locus of points equidistant from a center" and it is also a "curve of constant curvature in a plane".
If someone were to say that all circles have three vertices, and then offer in argument that a circle is a plane figure with three sides, one might do well to trivialise their argument. Suggesting that they might later show that the locus of all points equidistant from a given point is also a plane figure with three sides does not help.
On definitions: fascinating that the third section of part two of “Lectures.....” is mostly definitions, part two establishing the background to which the definitions subsequently apply. Just about anything you can think relative to morality or ethics is covered, and would be advisable in following Kant.
You know.......like the OP says.
If this is mere exegesis, then fine.
If you think you are saying something about freedom and duty, then we have an interesting disagreement.
That is, Kant was wrong.
He's talking about something else.
No. You can't equivocate like that. You said...
Quoting tim wood
That is a statement about courses of action, not definitions. What we 'call' such a course of action is not relevant to the normative force you want to impart to it.
Absolutely, at least with respect to freedom as a moral condition, for such is gross disrespect for humanity in general regarding cause, and himself as a member of it, regarding risk.
You say
Quoting tim wood
Your argument is essentially. ..
-By Kant's definition of freedom, riding without a helmet is not freedom.
-We all think freedom is a good thing.
-We should therefore not ride motorbikes without helmets.
But you equivocate on the meaning of freedom between the first and second point. If riding a motorbike without a helmet is not freedom as Kant defines it then the only thing that follows from that is that we should not ride motorbikes without helmets if we value freedom as Kant defines it.
Since it is nowhere shown why we should do so, nor empirically demonsrated that such a value is likely to be one we all hold, the conclusion has no normative force.
My bad. By normative force I simply mean something like persuasive power with regards to action - ie the the difference between saying to someone "you ought not do x" and "you ought not do x because...". the degree to which the 'because...' is persuasive is the normative force of the statement.
Quoting tim wood
I think you make a false dichotomy between nihilism and rationally derived truth, There are other values than rationally derived truth which might give normative force to a statement. for example "If you don't do X no-one will like you" has normative force because (generally) we want to be liked. Us generally wanting to be liked is an empirical observation and anyone denying it would have quite a job of persuasion, so there's little risk of nihilism, but nor is there a rational argument there as to why we 'ought' to want to be liked - we just do. That's why, when I said about your argument having normative force I offered two courses - the rational argument, or the appeal to some value we're likely to hold commonly.
Quoting tim wood
I'm not sure where you're getting this line of argument from, it seems to have no basis that we might share (or are you simply trying to establish that basis?). In the latter case then I'm afraid we do not have common ground from which to argue because I disagree with your axiom here. I believe 'reason' is simply a habit of thinking which has proven useful. The 'proven useful' part is experience. We think in such algorithms as show that 2+2=4 simply because such methods yield useful results, not because such thinking methods are somehow hard-wired into the universe (though they may be somewhat hard-wired into us).
Quoting tim wood
Agreed. But it is absolutely evident that we do not all hold the same truths to be self-evident. That there is a need to hold something as self evident to avoid nihilism cannot be held up as an argument in support of any specific such something. Support for some particular something (truth held as self-evident) might come from psychology, anthropology, sociology, religion...but it cannot come from rational argument because rational argument must always take a premise and show a conclusion. If the conclusion is "X should be taken as self-evident" what would the premise there be?
Quoting tim wood
It's hard to tell if you're claiming these as empirical observations or rational conclusions. If the latter, the question is the same for each - what is the premise from which you derive these as conclusions? As the former they fail spectacularly in terms of support.
1) Mankind alone is free - we have no reason to believe this. We feel like we're free, but then we also find ourselves making decisions we later which we'd given more thought to, anden masse we seem to make some incredibly self-defeating choices. The jury is very much still out as to how 'free' we are.
2) Mankind alone can make moral choices - The jury is not even really still out on this one. Majority opinion is that at least great apes have morality that is biologically indistinguishable from our own. I can provide citations if you're interested.
3) Reason alone is the original source of moral choices - Again, not even up for debate really. FMRI scan show moral decisions being made involving areas of the brain at times completely separate from those involved in rational decisions. We unequivocally do not make moral decisions solely by rational thought. again, if you require citations I can provide them
4) Morality is the ability to discern and distinguish the right, and to choose accordingly - Yes, I think that's a good working definition.
5) Humanity, in self and community, has value (or it has no value) - Yep, no argument there either.
6) Life in itself has value (or it has no value) - Again, agreed.
7) The right is in accordance with a reverence for life and humanity - It certainly seems to be, but consider acts of bravery in war, these may well involve killing an 'enemy'. I think reverence for life and humanity is part of it, but it's complicated in times of conflict.
8) In order to act morally, one must be free to act - Not so sure on this one. There does seem to be some necessity to have free choice (if we're forced to do a 'good' thing, that is rarely seen as virtuous), but I'd be sceptical that a definition requires us to know the 'true' extent of someone's freedom. Were that the case we'd never be able to properly use the word. It must be sufficient that there's a general appearance of freedom (ie no-one's putting a gun to your head). I see no reason why that need extend to the absence of psychological drives to act. Such drives are, after all, just as much part of 'us' as our rational thoughts.
9) Duty is the obligation to act in accordance with morality - Seems like another good working definition.
10) Realization of purpose under morality is the highest aim of mankind - Empirically difficult to see how this is true. as a rational conclusion it requires a jump from identifying that which is moral to identifying an absence of other equally pressing objectives - something you've not yet done.
Quoting tim wood
Right - so this ^ is all what I mean by post hoc rationalisation. Nothing you've said here is false, but it is 'selected' to achieve an end (helmetless riding is bad, helmeted riding is not). Where, in your assessment of potential harms is the particulate pollution that even helmeted riding produces - arguably more damaging than the occasional motorcycle accident? Where the risk to other road users simply by virtue of unnecessary travel - all motorised vehicles are dangerous, the leading cause of death in many places? Where the harm caused simply by buying the bike - unfair working practices, modern slavery derived components...? I could go on.
The point is simply that regardless of our conclusions about the flaws or otherwise in your moral framework, it is without a doubt that it's application is post hoc - you already know what sorts of things you'd' like to turn out to be 'right' and which you'd like to turn out to be 'wrong'. They're generally the things which seem good to you. I can guarantee you that if a moral algorithm ever produced the result that you should murder your wife you simply wouldn't do it, you'd presume you'd made a mistake somewhere. Why? Because you already know it's wrong. It's not like maths. I have no feeling about the 'right' answer to a complicated sum, but I already know which answers to complicated moral dilemmas feel wrong.
Quoting tim wood
Odd.
All you have done is define freedom as doing one's duty, then claimed that freedom is doing one's duty. Trivial and irrelevant.
Why can't you just say that freedom - being able to do whatever we want - is either an impediment or an obstruction for the good, that duty - being unable to do whatever we want - is what defines the good?
In a Kantian universe good means certain morally meaningful duties, obligations to either perform or not perform certain actions but we're completely free with respect to whether we accept to live by this Kantian moral code or not.
Thus, to append to what you said, and I quote, "freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty (OR NOT)".
It's kinda like having the freedom to either become a member or not become a member of a club (the Kantian club) but once you're a member you have to follow the rules (Kantian duties). :chin:
Banno's point, consistently over many years, is that fathoming how a word is used is often the task of philosophy; and hence commencing with definitions is usually superfluous. This thread being typical.
Your insistence that we would understand were we only to read more Kant reads like an invitation to a cult - arcane knowledge is to be had, come join us!
What do you mean by "raw capacity". You speak as if freedom has a meaning other than being able to do whatever we want. Pray tell, what is this other meaning?
It's things like this that I don't know how to respond to, and yet your posts are littered with them. Am I to take such brazen declarations as something you're supposedly educating me about, or as a rhetorical device to seek agreement/disagreement. It's really hard to tell, you keep just declaring things to be the case without offering any support or inviting agreement, it's frankly a bit odd. Not that I mind odd, but it's difficult to formulate a response.
Quoting tim wood
Right. As does the helmeted rider via other means. That was my point. He doesn't serve as a waymarker of anything other than your personal preference for riding motorcycles but doing so with helmet. Or, being more charitable, if he does serve as a waymarker it is only of the basic truth that some behaviours are less socially responsible than others. I don't see how it's any waymarker helping to decide which are which.
Quoting tim wood
You've misunderstood the purpose of my example. I'm not arguing that what is moral is just what we like or don't like. I'm saying that "Y will lead to X and you'd like X" is an example of a conclusion with normative force. Equally ..."and X is better for society" might do the same, or "...and X will make your loved ones happier"...
At root, people will only do what they feel some motivation to do, and that includes behaving rationally.
Quoting tim wood
Again, this skirts the issue here. I'm quite happy with the notion of a 'Kantian' Definition of freedom. Let's call it Freedom B and the more normal definition Freedom A. Now when one says "you ought not do X because it leads to a loss of Freedom A", one does not need to go any further. People risk their lives for Freedom A, it is evidently something people aspire to and so any course of action advised on the grounds of avoiding it's loss has normative force already. But when you say "you ought not do Y because is leads to a loss of Freedom B", there's no such self-evident manifestation of people's aspiration. People do not regularly risk their lives in aspiration of Freedom B. You need to provide a reason why we should aspire to Freedom B because it is not already self-evident that we do.
Tangentially related perhaps, but how so? How do you judge the 'correct' usage?
Does that a lot, doesn't he? It’s not this, it’s not that, get rid of enough of the stuff a thing isn’t, what it is arises as all the more legitimate.
Be great to arrive at that which is impossible to be rid of.......
Hmmm....perhaps. I wonder if Kant knew the word. He certainly maintained the necessity, hence the validity, of causality. The prime intellectual conception of causality being, of course, freedom. And just as no unconditioned causality in Nature can be discovered, so too is it impossible to prove the reality of freedom as a purely intellectual causality. A form of bootstrapping, indeed, but perhaps logically permissible. Perhaps? If not that, then what?
“....Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed to every rational being. I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory...”
Gotta start somewhere, right?
Unfortunately, the US has forgotten what morals have to do with liberty and it is becoming a paranoid police state. When I became frustrated trying to do a money transfer at Walmart, I was told by the women at the service counter and someone supposed to be the manager that they have been trained to watch out for fraud. Well good for them. Better training in customer service would make the store more active. But it is not just Walmart, how about when we make a business call and get the message the phone call may be recorded to assure quality assurance purposes. How sad the employers do not trust their employees and think they must be kept under surveillance. Not even dentists and doctors are treated respectfully, but they too are expected to follow orders from the office manager and policy just like uneducated laborers.
Liberal education as we had in the past, beginning with the first grade, would correct this problem because it would create a culture that embraced what you said in the OP. The more everything is kept in a file, and records are checked, and people are kept under surveillance, the worse things get and this is what we defended our democracies against in two world wars. Today China is a model of government control of people, but the US is not far behind.
Laugh, believing we are free to do anything we want seems to lack awareness of consequences. Because there are consequences resulting from what we do, we are not exactly free. Sooner or later the wrongs will come back to bite us.
Agreed, here is no room for relativism with respect to freedom as a necessary intellectual conception. It is worth remembering “intellectual” just indicates a conception having nothing to do with sensibility, the conceptions of which are always empirical, which in turn means there are physical objects subsumed under them. Freedom has no physical object, obviously; it is nonetheless an object of pure practical reason.
The relativism resides in the will of the subject, of which freedom is merely the ground of the will’s capacity to author moral laws to which that subject obligates himself.
I apologize for being so gross, but what comes to mind is if you can not get your zipper down you can not pee. But nature isn't so reasonable and sometimes we pee before we are ready. That does not change the fact that is preferable to wait until the zipper is down and our body parts are correctly positioned. No matter what, our duty is to do our best to control what happens even though it is possible something may go wrong.
Thank you for spreading the information that is sadly lacking in the US. If we do not correct the education wrong, very soon, our democracy will be forgotten because our young have no idea of what it once was to be a citizen in the United States to have liberty without authority over us and without constant surveillance. Every school should have a Statue of Liberty and every student should understand why she holds and torch and a book.
We all need to know, only highly moral people can have liberty, for the same reason we keep poorly trained dogs on a leash in the city. We ended education for good moral thinking and now we are on a leash and under surveillance and this could be the end of being an international leader.
You’ve shown adequately why one shouldn’t appeal to the dictionary. At best dictionaries record current usage of a term, not what it should or should not mean, nor what it has meant in the past or what it might might mean in the future. It’s ridiculous to confine a discussion to a dictionary definition.
I enjoy your take on duty and freedom, but I depart from the logic after we leave Kant’s thinking and venture into your own.
If I recall correctly, Kant mostly limits his coercion to those who hinder freedom, so I’m not sure he would advocate penalizing those “who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want”.
I think it’s laudable to say one has a duty to be safe and avoid the risk of harm, and one is free to do so, but once this principle is forced upon others or they are penalized for risk, I think we have the realm of freedom into its opposite.
Quoting tim wood
A very important discussion currently, so thank you for the post. What sparked my curiosity was the idea of duty and whether there is any compulsion. First, there is the distinction between the rational and emotional, or (Hume's) moral sense/innate moral judgment. I would argue that we can bypass this and still have a personal moral decision bound to reasonable action.
Starting with the idea that duty is "what reason tells us ought to [be] done", I would point out that this frames our moral decisions as occurring beforehand; rationally coming to a morality--a defined moral standard (in Kant's case), or theory, or the setting of what is a moral/immoral act (through authority, agreement, or other process, etc.--"regularity" Kant says). Morality and the "ought" have their place, but, like much of the moral, they have no force (apart from moralism, punishment, shame, etc.). I can make a case for what you ought to do (like Kant), and even have reasons that make sense (including internal coherency, categories or levels or rationality, etc.), but that does not ensure anyone will do what they ought to (see, e.g., Dostoyevsky). The same applies to the Good, though I believe teleology makes sense in relation to an object, say, in bettering our institutions.
Instead, imagine a case after our morality (beyond Good and Evil, as Nietzsche says)--a moral moment. As Cavell would say, when we do not know what to do; we are at a loss despite our deontological rules. Part of the picture here is that we are standing in the present, with a current context. And by this I do not mean a pre-determined context as in some thought-puzzle; a context that is as full and deep as the entire world, and that includes not only physical circumstances, but also our morality, all the distinctions we make and could make, and, most importantly, us as an unfinished work. One of Emerson, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche's important contributions is that our action defines us; we are not here good/bad, right/wrong, but lazy, selfish, courageous, etc. Wittgenstein talks about "continuing a series" and taking an "attitude". Our action reflects on us; so consequences matter, but when we come to the end of a rule, who we are is at stake. Sometimes even, as Nietzsche and Thoreau point out, the "immoral" act is the necessary act.
So whatever moral "force" there is, it is not (only) immorality, punishment, or wrong/bad, but our responsibility (to ourselves, our words, our actions), our integrity--not so much our reputation, as our character--our moral identity, in a sense. People, obviously, sometimes don't care about these things (nor do they have to), but they are nevertheless subject to this human condition in the moral realm. As I have said in my post on Witt's lion quote--when we come to the end of knowledge of the Other's pain, we either accept or reject them (their moral claim on us). He says, "My attitude towards [them] is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that [they have] a soul." p. 178. We don't have knowledge that they have a soul, we treat them as if they do (or not), but the point being that we are in the mix here, our human frailty and possibility.
Now if our course of action is not defined (by, say, rules) ahead of time, nor by others (entirely); if we are lost and our character is on the line, what is our duty? If we can not rely on rationality to tell us what to do (should do)--say, definitively, certainly, "objectively", as it were, without our "person" being involved (though not emotionally/"subjectively")--are there criteria for determining our duty in that moment? Now here, all the moral philosophers I have read spend most of their effort pushing against simple morality/moralism (Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Cavell, Emerson) so, what came to me first, actually, was the Bhagavad-Gita. Not that I agree with the answers themselves, nor feel that ours is a theological argument, but the situation and the type of discussion is an example of the type of grounds/criteria for a "reasonable" determination of our duty.
The case is that Arunja is going to war against his own family, and he is filled with doubt, pity, grief, etc., and turns to his "charioteer" Krishna for advice (imagine he is talking to himself). Krishna does not make a case for war (say, a "just" war), nor does he rely on how one should treat others--it is not a discussion of ends nor means. As part of the discussion, Arjuna keeps asking how he will know what to do, and Krishna is left with only being able to show Arjuna "his totality"--here again imagine Krishna is Arjuna's own voice to himself--to which Aruna says "You [I, as it were] alone fill the space" (20). It is similar to how Job's questioning is finally left only with the vision of the Leviathan--turning him back on himself to provide the answer.
Arjuna asks what defines a person whose insight is sure (54). They discuss discipline, detachment from emotions and goals, necessity, what differentiates an act from a motion, the need to ask questions, reflection, and the partial nature of our world's concepts and outcomes (only made whole by our action). Krishna advises "knowing the field", which is a way of saying the lay-of-the-land, which I take as making explicit the criteria of the (then-present) situation as well as of our concepts of action, courage, selfishness, flippancy, thoughtfulness, being reasonable, etc. These are criteria for defining a person in light of their actions. I submit that our duty is found in this space and the context and the ways our character/"humanity" is judged, not as right or wrong or good and bad, but nevertheless as rational (reasonable), rigorous, careful, detailed--as if our approach to a moral moment required an ethical epistemology.
Are we bound to our duty? In this sense we are; we are bound to our act. In these ways we are more responsible than just to rules/laws; we are, in a sense, created by our actions and finished as well (to a particular conception of ourselves). (The fact that here there are excuses and mitigation--such as lack of freedom to do what we decide is our duty--aides the point.) I believe these are not traditional philosophical rationale, but ordinary, everyday criteria. The "logic of the thing [that] compels agreement" is that we are disappointed by people, we no longer trust them, we believe they are fools, braggarts, cowards, etc.; that they made their choice in a moral moment thoughtlessly, hastily, self-servingly, recklessly, on a whim, etc. Do they care? Maybe not. Nonetheless, it can be true.
I think that your argument is very detailed in analysis and manages to connect the whole area of duty on the level of motivation with the actual practice of moral actions. This moves the understanding of ethics beyond the apparent conflict between the deontological and utilitarian approaches of Kant vs. J S Mill. The two have most often been seen as in opposition to one another and I believe that you have succeeded in offering a way of bridging the two viewpoints.
Google definition of "freedom": the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. Freedom is precisely how it's been defined but the actual situation on the ground may vary. Read the fine print :joke:
On a more serious note, one has to draw a distinction between what we mean by freedom and to what degree we possess it. These two are entirely different things. One - the meaning of freedom - represents our conception, expectation, and perhaps even our hope and the other - the freedom we possess - is reality's constraining, modifying, limiting effect on us.
Of course you might say that the facts as they stand matter - we have to mind the consequences of how we act, speak, and think - and that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom. True but notice a simple fact. Would you call this situation, having to walk on eggshells as it were, always mindful of the consequences of our acts, speech, and thoughts, freedom? No, right? I rest my case.
Quoting tim wood
Let us call this parameter one.
Quoting tim wood
Let us call this parameter two.
Therefore, applying the above two parameters, I postulate the following:
Mark realizes that, due to pollution, over harvesting, habitat destruction, over population, and the lack of meaningful change to rectify these problems, the earth will no longer be able to sustain life, human or otherwise, within the next three hundred years. Mark, being an exceedingly talented geneticist, has the ability to create a virus which will eliminate 75% of the human population over the next hundred years. There is no suffering to speak of, simply a massive reduction in the ability to reproduce and the resulting population decline. This action will result in the betterment of future generations as well as restoring global balance and harmony.
Duty suggests that Mark release his virus, despite his personal feelings on the issue. He is aware of both outcomes, elimination of everyone (no action on his part) or elimination of 75% of humanity (action on his part). Good will (ensuring that life goes on) informs Mark's Duty to Act, which is supported by reason (Continuation of life over the cessation of life), and therefore, the act that Ought to be done.
And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant.
There you have it, folks. Perhaps the greatest thinker since Aristotle, personally responsible for the last real paradigm shift in modern philosophy, develops a moral theory with so many holes in it a ten-year-old can blow it up with a single existential possibility.
Schopenhauer is probably wondering why he never thought of it; Hegel first, then Quine, both want to be remembered as having thought it already.
“....[f]or non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems?—?save perhaps the existence of Kantians....”
(Rorty, 1982)
On the vulgar understanding’s forays into the academic:
“.....a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions.....”
(CPR A61/B86)
Still....one remains free to think whatever he likes. (Sigh)
This would be highly dependent on our culture, associations, and the books we read. Social animals have what some call a pre-morality. They are wired for group behavior. They have different learning capabilities, with chimps having more ability to learn than baboons, however, animals can transmit culture to each other. They do not have the language essential to the thinking humans do, and we are not born with this language, nor are we born knowing the concepts essential to moral thinking and we aren't born knowing the high order thinking skills. Any "personal moral decision bound to reasonable action" is dependant on what we learn and because our circumstances are different, our sense of morality can be different.
This is where the higher-order thinking skills come in. That is the learned ability to reason through our choices and make decisions. The US focused on teaching these skills, and used the Conceptual Method, and had education for good moral judgment until the 1958 National Defense Education Act. Now the US has the reactionary politics Germany had. The US replaced its education with the German model. The best way to learn history is to experience and the next few days, months, year- will be very interesting. :grin: Morality based on how we feel instead of how we think, leads to power struggles not a high standard of morality.
It certainly is not my fault if the masses are ignorant of reality and what reasoning has to do with knowing universal law and the importance of living by the laws of nature. :grin:
I am having a huge problem with the limited education we have had and the changed meanings of words and spell-check is especially horrifying. I am horrified by how technology has changed our understanding of words and appears to be restricting our awareness of concepts. You might want to reconsider what being technologically correct is doing to our understanding of life.
Your distinction between freedom and the freedom we possess is interesting, but when I open the present of your thought, the box is empty. It is a word game without substance because if we do not understand cause and effect and the limits of our freedom, things can go very wrong, so I don't think separating cause and effect thinking from our understanding of freedom is a good idea. Yes, I do say "the facts as they stand matter". :kiss:
" that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom."
:kiss: Please, consider what I said about technological correctness. I think education, as focused on technology as the education we have had, is not education for science, and that it is deadly. We have a culture change and I wish the discussion of that could expand. We are about to experience the results of that culture change resulting from the 1958 change in education and I don't think we are going to like it. Our understanding of freedom and duty is nothing as it once was! We have fragments of that past in old books that we can not find in the books written by a technologically correct society. My grandmother's generation is long dead and loosing them is a terrible loss to us! Her father sold the family's beautiful home on the lake, and his business and he became a laborer and he paid off all the investors in the business he had until his business partner embezzled the companies money. In their day, honor was more important than money. This was clearly obvious in my grandmother's character and I have seen it in others that were of her generation. Being with these people was completely different than what we experience today. Today's understanding of freedom has nothing to do with honor and that is a terrible thing!
Duty and honor go hand in hand. You are smart but what you wrote lacks wisdom. Your story associates doing the smart thing with killing which most certainly would not be considered honorable and this kind of thinking is exactly what is wrong in the US today. :rage: Education for a technological society with unknown values has destroyed the democracy we once had when we had education for good moral judgment.
Quoting tim wood
Method is basically what I am talking about, though I would say that we do gain something. "Knowledge" is a loaded word in ethics, but we do gain insight (even, of ourselves), a larger perspective, and, say, an understanding of the criteria of our concepts and the context we find ourselves in, etc.
Quoting tim wood
Although we might not always know the criteria for something (what is indicative of "walking" is one example Wittgenstein gives"), it might be a little cynical to say we are "always lost". This is only to say though that not everything is a moral moment, the same as to say not every motion is an action, or every action is "intended". We normally go along saying things and doing things, and only when something is fishy (Austin/Cavell say) do we ask "What did you mean?" or "Did you intend to do that?" The things we do and say being, not illusion, but merely not usually conceptually investigated (looking at their criteria and use). And I would claim knowledge is not so much false, as limited--it comes to an end, say, with respect to the separate Other (which I take up in my examination of Wittgenstein's lion quote).
Quoting tim wood
I agree that what I am suggesting is both an examination of the world, and learning about ourself. And also agree that Kant is trying to find morality in and with reason, but my argument here is that his is still an effort to solve the moral problem beforehand. It is also to deny the human contribution (thrown out with the desire to remove emotion, inclination, etc. (the "subjective") from moral decision-making); seeing the partial role of rational rules and criteria is to acknowledge the human standing up for what matters to them (or not), subject to the consequences to their identity, character, answerability, etc.--completing the circle Emerson would say.
Quoting tim wood
You may enjoy Stanley Cavell's essay in "The Quest for the Ordinary", in which he uses The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to investigate the loss caused by the line Kant draws between us and the thing-in-itself.
Unless you knew people of my grandmother's generation, I don't really care what you think. It is like talking about being an overwhelmed nurse in a hospital that is overwhelmed without having the experience. I have no idea why some people appear to worship Nietzsche. Nietzsche and Hegel got Germany into big trouble. Not directly but as others adopted their ideas and Prussia organized the whole of Germany into an industrial/military complex, we saw the horrors man can create when they love power and not wisdom.
This is not quick judgment but a very passionate judgment. The US and its allies defeated Germany in two world wars and then the US adopted the German (Prussian) models of bureaucracy and education and replaced classic education presenting Greek and Roman philosophers with education for technology and German philosophers, Now the US is what it defended it is democracy against. It no longer understands rule by reason but has reactionary politics as Germany did and I think we are in for a walk through Hades.
Exactly want is my part in the US being a Military Industrial Complex with reactionary politics and a culture that has lost sight of morality? :chin:
Quoting Athena
I agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.
I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.).
Quoting Athena
Well, I deeply apologize; I got an email that I thought was you replying to my post, but it was, instead, you replying to someone else's (a little new to this). I thought it was strange, but I made some poor assumptions, and I'm sorry that I offended you. If it helps, my mother lived through the war in England, and my grandmother the century before last.
Quoting Athena
As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit).
Quoting Athena
Again, my sincere apologies. As a token of peace, I offer that you might (if you can forgive him for basically being a Nazi) find Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology” interesting. He has a very dark view of the influence of technology, roughly, "enframing" (narrowing) our view of humanity and nature as only a means (echoing Marx).
To do as we want is freedom.
But you don't get it. The fact that you consider our existing condition as just one in which we have to deal with, as you said, "the limits of our freedom" indicates that you subscribe to the definition of freedom I provided, freedom as "the power to act, speak, and think as one wants". Then you go on to criticize the very definition that you believe is true - nothing wrong in that if you're suicidal of course. The present of my thought may have been empty but yours is incoherent. I guess something's better than nothing :smile:
Quoting tim wood
I went back to the beginning of the OP to see where this started. I’m assuming the example you gave is about freedom without duty, or what some just call freedom, When you say the motorcyclist hurts “ everyone, and some greatly” how do you mean that?
Okay. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.
Is there any possible action that would not fall under this example of freedom and duty?
What I was getting at is are there circumstances someone might harm themselves without hurting others? Like someone without any family commits suicidal?
I think there is a flaw in the argument that only the harm to others matters. It is a bare assertion. If I harm myself or if another harms me, I am harmed in either case. What distinguishes them so that one is immoral and the other is permissible?
Note we aren't talking about formulating laws for regulating our society but speaking about ethical principles.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, absolutely.
Quoting tim wood
The problem is, I think, that you’re using two meanings of freedom. Is, in your opinion, the freedom to do what you want related to Kant’s idea? It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That is some heavy thinking. A couple of points hit a nerve. Mostly at this moment, I can not stop thinking of all those good people who stormed the capital of the US. I must be careful how I speak of this because I could be so easily misunderstood. I want you to know your post resulted in me leaving the forum to write a letter to the editor and I thank you for the thoughts that lead to that.
The people who stormed the Capital were fighting for our freedom, and I think we should consider what this action has to do with being proud Americans and proud of how our nation began with a rebellion. In the South, some people still wave the rebel flag, and we need to consider what that means to them and how it ties into being a patriotic citizen. I want to point out that the concept of freedom and duty in the South has meant these people strongly support the defense of the US when we go to war. Dumping our rage on them now without understanding their sense of cause is our wrong. Not that they were right, but let us be realistic. We have manifested a military-industrial complex that is disenfranchising people and rapidly changing our social order, and this just leads to the craziness we have been experiencing. This is not all bad but our lack of awareness is terrible!
"Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty."
That is true but, we have been disenfranchised. It is as Eisenhower warned us to let happen because the 1958 change in education made this so. Since 1958 the young for been prepared for "group think" and reliance on experts. We have extended the military order from our federal bureaucracy to every institution, and disempowered citizens. Because the citizens have absolutely no knowledge of the change in bureaucratic order and what this has to do the change in education, and the social, economic and political ramifications of this, they are not conscious of what has gone so terribly wrong but they are aware of the powerlessness. This turns us against each other.
People don't read long post so I will stop here. At this moment in history, talking about being born into a moral/cultural/language, seems to miss the reality of the US today. Our morality, culture, language, is in complete turmoil right now and we are killing each other trying to save our democracy. I am hating myself for not being a better writer and not completing the book I started long ago. We are unaware of why things have gone crazy and I hate myself for my failure to do raise awareness.
No apology is necessary. I think we should recognize we are coming from different cultures and that this may lead to misunderstanding. We have lost sight of the fact that can be more than one truth because there most certainly are different situations, and what is true in your situation may not be true in mine. My very old logic book makes this clear, but that is no longer the logic we are working with, therefore, we have intense conflicts and even violence. Education for technology has to led us thinking something is either true or it is false, and now we are tearing each other apart and tending towards violence instead of reason.
"As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit)."
I am sure you did not mean to insult me, by saying I do not have a sincere desire to learn. I will point out, as my very old logic book did, that there are too many things for us to learn for anyone to know all of them. No human being can learn everything. Nietzsche does not come to the top of my list something I must study, however, that does not mean I have no desire to learn. How the masses understood being supermen has come down through history as a nightmare that is regrettable. Nietzsche's influence on society and the impact of rapidly advancing technology has backed humanity into a corner, and I think Greek and Roman philosophy might better prepare us to make the transition to the New Age, better than Nietzsche and Hegel. Not that what they said has no value, but it did not lead to the democracy of the US. It has however influenced the US ever since Eisenhower put the military-industrial complex in place. It is far better for humanity for us to strive to be the best humans we can be, instead of us being driven to be supermen. I will add, women being liberated to be as men is not as good as them being empowered as women. As civilians and police clash, we need the feminine force.
Now that appears to be along my line of interest. It is insane that we fight for our liberty and give it up for technology! Not just technology like our computers and the web, but bureaucratic technology as well. The changed bureaucratic technology has shifted power to government and disenfranchised us. To use the Christian term, this is the beast on steroids!
Unfortunately, Christians tend to study their Bibles instead of reality. If they paid as much attention to reality we might all be working together much better than we are. Right now the US divide between science and religion is ripping the nation apart and we must get back to understanding why our Statue of Liberty holds a book and what science has to do with morals and liberty.
I love the debate the two of you are having.
If we want government services we must give up a degree of freedom. If we are going to rent instead of own our homes, we give up some freedom. If we want to use computers and the internet, we must give up a degree of freedom. Even if we want medical care we must give up a degree of freedom because we can be denied medical care and just about anything else if we are not cooperative.
suggested reading Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology”.
He tried to make amends with me by saying he was influenced by his mother and grandmother who experienced the war years. I wonder if he noticed their expectation of everyone accepting their authority instead of waiting to know the policy and what they must do to comply with it?
My story was not to disparage the teaching of Kant, but to point out that the perspective and values of the individual determine the interpretation and application of Kant's framework.
Hum, presently international organizations are attempting to reduce procreation by giving women jobs. When women have jobs other than caring for family, and children are most likely going to become adults, people have fewer children. So in your story, how is procreation reduced?
Freethought is the honesty to choose the best or most fulfilling choice in the moment, neverminding what was good a minute or seconds ago. This honesty opens the mind to information otherwise unapproachable even by studious minds.
The inherent flaw in your reasoning.
Quoting tim wood
"But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” - Hunter S. Thompson
Quoth Zizek, whom I sure you can't stand, "freedom hurts". I don't think that you have to give up riding motorcycles because of Kant, if that's what you're asking. For someone, perhaps?
With road safety, the difference is, a crew of paramedics and police officers are responsible for removing your corpse. They are also responsible for reporting bad news to your family.
Because others have responsibility for your actions, they should also have an authority on them... Wow that's really hard for me to right, as I'm big on safety awareness.
Personally, I think that as long as I am aware enough in a angerous situation, then I shouldn't have to wear gloves/goggles etc. But usually it's the employer who is responsible if I do hurt myself. So then it nakes sense that they should have authority on my minimum safety requirements.
In saying all that, I'm free to ride a motorbike with no helmet, gloves or glasses, on my own peice of land.
Upon a second reading, it still seems to be about how the categorical imperative bars you from the freedom to ride motorcycles. I don't know. Whatever.
Well, now that you said all of that, I'm not sure what this has to do with Kant. To me, the supposed right to put yourself at risk does, to varying degrees, exist, but, from a Kantian perspective, it would seem that you shouldn't, as you shouldn't will that everyone else do the same.
Kant seemingly makes sense. It all makes sense if you believe in some sort of abstract transcendent ideal and in a quasi-eschatological "kingdom of ends". The categorical imperative, however, deprives Ethics of circumstance. There is a world of difference between stealing an old Gibson that was the parting gift of a musician's late mentor, stealing a pair of expensive headphones produced by multinational business conglomerate, and stealing a loaf of bread because you are hungry and poor. That you shouldn't steal because you shouldn't will that all of society steals, thereby resulting in that it becomes comprised of factional sets of feuding marauding bands, breaks very quickly down when you don't assume that people need to given universal laws so as to ensure that society doesn't disintegrate. People are entirely capable of understanding that an act is made within a given situation, analyzing its circumstances, and determining whether or not the act was ethical.
Kant provides some of the world's best moral framework, without realizing that no such thing can exist. To use the extreme example, in Nazi Germany, it would seem to be easy to say that people shouldn't lie, as, when you have a society that is predicated upon a lie, the effect can be catastrophic. What about under interrogation by the Gestapo, though? To me, to Kant, it makes no difference as to whether I am under interrogation by the Gestapo or have been brought before a human rights tribunal. Perhaps, I do misunderstand him, though.
Emmanuel Levinas has a short parable that I have always liked, called The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights. The poignant double-entendre at the end has led me to what someone once described as "nihilistic optimism". Ethics is like that, in a sense, without a thought. To create an entire methodology, however, predicated upon some sort of innate good will and deprived of subjectivity almost entirely, to me, just seems to be somewhat absurd, if not somehow both condescending and naive.
To return to your original question, though, you do owe it to those who care about you not to take any suicidal impulse too far. Some people never give up mountaineering, however. Should they fall, and almost all good climbers do fall someday if they don't give it up, is that really the sort of thing that you should hold against them?
Money is an issue. Especially is the safety gear adds upto $300+.
Safety awareness and skill are far superior as a tool for risk reduction. After 8 years in the forestry(New Zealand highest safety risk/mortality industry) its clear that safety gear is limited at protecting someone from harm.
Preferably, you want someone who is always alert, has skill and/or experience. With all these attributes, you don't need any safety gear. When someone dies, it's usually because they were lacking in one of these areas, and the safety gear they were wearing was absolutely useless.
Wearing a seat belt doesn't automatically make you immune to death by motor accident. I imagine the same attributes needed to reduce mortality in the forestry, would also reduce mortality on the roads.
Most safety gear only mitigates damage from an accident. Hi-vi's doesn't work very well, otherwise they'd make you wear it to cross the road. If I get into a motorbike accident that's intense enough to kill me, it would most likely kill me if I was wearing safety gear.
So then the question I ask, is who gets to define the amount of mitigation required for safety gear. Ie when riding a motorcycle, should I wear a helmet, gloves, goggles, fire retardent overalls, bullet proof vest and a titanium exoskeltal protection suit. Just the helmet? Just the helmet and gloves? I think the rider should get to decide.
Who do you think should decide what the rider should wear, on their own land. Once know this question then we can figure out what the level of mitigation should be, or perhaps you could answer both.
I don't ask anyone to pay my bills. Nor do I want them too. This highlights another freedom removed, in an anti-capatilast fashion. I'm lucky to have a Grandfather who fought in WW2 so that I could have my freedom. Ie the freedom to ride with my hair out. (like he used too)
In Thailand, motorcyclist carry 3 or 4 passengers, each without a helmet too. Do you advocate, someone needs to take their freedoms, pay their bills so they have to get a scooter each and wear helmets?
"Therefore, whoever tells a lie, however well intentioned he might be,
must answer for the consequences, however unforeseeable they were, and pay the penalty
for them even in a civil tribunal. This is because truthfulness is a duty which must be
regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would
be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted." - Immanuel Kant
By demanding adherence to a universal law in every given situation, Kant deprives Ethics of circumstance. On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives is his anticipation of this objection to his moral philosophy, but, I don't see how it holds up. Under interrogation by the Gestapo, Kant is effectively suggesting that you do not have a right to lie to them as you are bound by duty to uphold a moral law that everyone ought to abide by, namely that people shouldn't lie. In some cases, perhaps, it would be better to uphold whatever lofty ideals that you ascribe to and state them honestly, even when dealing with people who are extraordinarily vile, but I am of the opinion that it is of a veritable ethic for a person to tell the Gestapo anything that will keep them from finding the Jews or whomever else they are hiding. That you should always act as if you would will for such an act to become a universal law extrapolates the situations that give rise to Ethics beyond their circumstances via an appeal to an abstract ideal, which, referring to the non-existence of moral framework, I do not believe exists.
Responding to your question as to whether or not I am squandering your tax money with my federal student loans, the answer is yes, and it is because I don't give a flying fuck about how you feel about your money. I may even attempt to get society of your ilk to finance a postgraduate education if I can figure out how to. With that, I'll bid you adieu.
I'm only attempting to give you an understanding of my general attitude towards the ostensibly hard-earned wealth of sociopathic academics. As an ethical quandary, I give about as much thought as I do whether or not I should massacre apparently villainous creatures in a dungeon crawler, which isn't to say that there isn't some residual effect. On some level, I am so inclined to wonder as to just what contemporary hero myths suggest about our society, when, at least in most video games, they often rely upon the copious slaughter of mythological creatures that have been otherized. What I mean, though, is that it is something that I think about about as much as I do at the time in which it is happening, which is to say that it doesn't even enter the periphery of my thought. As to whether or not I should fire the thunder arrows at the water demon does not matter because I have already fired them.
Quoting tim wood
Exactly. Both here and in On the Supposed Right to Lie, Kant is making the claim that the circumstances under which an Ethical act is made do not matter and affirming his more or less sole moral law, being the categorical imperative, which commands that, in every given situation that gives rise to Ethics, you should act as if you would will for your act to be in accordance with a universal law, effectively a refinement of the Golden Rule wherein you should do unto others as you should will for all of society to do unto itself, though highly qualified and delineated by Kant. I am not claiming that Kant claims that you owe it to the thief not to lie. I am claiming that Kant is claiming that you are bound by duty not to lie, regardless as to whether you are speaking with a thief or, let's say, an honest merchant. Kant, whom I admittedly have only read so much of, seems to have spent a great deal of time justifying that claim. What I suspect is that he did not successfully do so. Why I suspect this is that Kant effectively believed in ethical truths, what I have previously described as "abstract ideals", namely the a priori information that is supposed to be somehow deigned via "reason". Not only did he invoke reason as such, but he also exclusively categorized it as pertaining to such information in opposition to empirical information, which he more or less relegated to the domain of folk wisdom and, therefore, of a realm of thought that was beneath the field of Philosophy, which, to him, had culminated in his "transcendental idealism". I am of the opinions that such ethical truths can only exist via the invocation of the divine and that the divine does not exist. Without such commandments, as they effectively are, it is left up to humanity to decide what is right within any given situation by taking into consideration as many of its aspects as are possible, as we are both limited by subjectivity and time, one of which is, namely, its circumstances. As a general rule, I would suggest that an act is ethical if it has been made in good faith, which I don't intend to clarify, as it would take a very long time to properly delineate and I do plan on leaving this forum for a period of time, but, as per the connotations of the qualifier, would suggest that every ethical act requires a leap of faith. Unlike Kant, who posits that you can know what is right in so far that you are compelled to behave as such via the categorical imperative, I posit that Ethics is an experiment in right, effectively cultivating a good way of life, which arises because of situations and is, therefore, to varying degrees, delimited by their circumstances.
As the person to have also thought this was one, Jean-Paul Sartre, I am well aware that people like you have become so unwittingly taken by Ayn Rand's interpretation of Aristotle and critique of the Soviet Union that they entirely incapable of responding to such a practical ethical philosophy with anything but hysterics over the projected reign of quote unquote relativism, but I just can't save you from what the Central Intelligence Agency has done to Analytic Philosophy for you.
So as to eschew reference, as, for whatever reason, citing Continental Philosophers is believed to be akin to being a member of the Church of Scientology on this forum, situational ethics is just applied and expanded upon Empiricist ethical philosophy. It is, perhaps, notable that we do generally assume that people do have free will, but, that's about as concisely as I can clear up this general misunderstanding.
I do have other things to do, and, so, am going to leave this forum now. I hope that all is well and goes well for all of you, at least, in so far that I either can or should, and will talk to you probably in a couple of months from now. Until we meet again!
I wouldn't say its a difficult read. It does explain a lot about police officers thinking. I would have answered, no comment, but it has in brackets (in a situation when you must answer).
The final idea is a pessimistic over assumption, that you are automatically someone who does not have a duty to tell the truth, if you do not answer. If an officer askse questions, I tell him I'm busy... because I'm usually busy, and don't have time to play mind/word games. The article suggests that I'm potentially a liar, because I refuse to directly answer any questions, I show the lack of duty.
All in all, its an interesting stress test of ideas. But the principles are only valid in either an Utopia where every has a perfect moral code application, or it's other use is in law, which pretends to be perfect.
As it pertains to the topic, if you were to say, wearing this safety gear will save your life, then you are lying. Or if you say, it will reduce the risk of accident, or it will reduce injury, then you are also lying. Yet when safety gear is advocated as a necessity, the previous assumption are portrayed as true. The only truth is that, safety gear has a potential to reduce risk/injury as is proven by statistics. Wearing a helmet won't save you in a head to head with a truck.
My argument, is that I have a duty, to exercise my inherited freedom. The less I exercise my rights and freedoms, the less I have.
Id wear a helmet on the road. I wouldn't wear one on a hilly, grassy farm. I could argue that it restricts the vision that I need for the more hazardous terrain, or livestock. But my argument is simply that, I have the right to do what I want on my own land.
My biggest gripe, is that politics dictate safety requirements. An Australian sued a company for his sun burn. Now its mandatory for most companies in Australia/New Zealand to wear fire retardant full cover overalls... In the blistering hot sun!! Before working in civil works, I'd been sun burnt a total of 3 times in my life. When working I civil works, I was sun burnt every year, because Im not stupid enough to wear fire retardant overalls when playing at the park on the holidays.
There's a whole list of detrimental PPE uses. Glasses when waterblasting in enclosed areas causes them to fog up, but too bad because they a few mandatory. Gloves in the forestry make it difficult to feel what your doing when reaching behind a tree.. Every job I've had, has some rediculous PPE requirement. But it's OK, because I signed up for the job, I will comply. In my own time, it's upto me. Freedom, means making up your own mind.