If some people feel incapable of going on, unable to convince themselves that things might improve for them in the future, then there would seem to be little scope for argument against suicide in those kinds of cases. — Janus

The reason this isn't a principle is because its not a rule, but a definiton. Maximising ones experience is to improve said experience according to some set of values. To ought to do something is to do so because it has increased value. Hence, you ought to maximise your experience, by definition, since it would improve said experience according to your values. It's like if I was to say "One wants to listen to songs that one enjoys", this isn't a principle, its definitional. — Ourora Aureis

Excellent dialectical theme you’ve created here; I appreciate the thought-provoking aspect, even without total mutual accord.

Isn't Kant's philosophy predicated on a "free will"? So that being said, having the maximum playing field to enact one's will freely, would seem to be entailed for this to be played out, no? — schopenhauer1

Also, my deontology isn't strictly Kantian-based, though I think most modern deontology is inspired by his framework... Intent/autonomy/rights/dignity/not being used, etc.. — schopenhauer1

Granted, which is why I think the freedom to choose is part of deontological considerations. — schopenhauer1

Okay, then I am more comfortable in my claim that you are misinterpreting Kant. From my edit: — Leontiskos

As far as I recall, Kant follows Christianity in claiming that one can fail to treat oneself as an end in oneself, and this would seem to undo the autonomy thesis. If it were just a matter of autonomy then treating oneself poorly would be impossible. — Leontiskos

The key here is that it is not legitimate to reduce "treat them as an end in themselves" to "treat them as an ends-maker." Those are not the same thing for Kant. The latter does not exhaust the former. Just because we are treating someone as an ends-maker does not mean that we are treating them as an end in themselves. The specific emphasis on autonomy and ends-making comes later, and I would argue that if taken too far is a strong deviation from Kant.

(Hence, in the arranged marriage, the parents are failing to treat the betrothed as ends-makers, but they are not necessarily failing to treat them as ends in themselves.)

The will is the faculty of right action, or, volition. I can see acting on a principle, or in accordance with a principle, but I don’t see the willing of one. — Mww

I have all along been uncomfortable with this language of "respecting them as ends-makers," because this is a reduction of the second formulation to autonomy. Obviously that is part of the second formulation, but I want to say that it is not the entirety of it. If it were entirely a matter of respecting them as ends-makers then I really would have to place their autonomy on a very high pedestal. This would be a rather significant, albeit interesting, deviation from Christianity. Is there textual warrant in Kant that the second formulation should be interpreted this way? — Leontiskos

If you think it violates the second formulation, then who is being treated as a mere means? I don't quite see it, and I am thinking of the analogous situation of an arranged marriage. If parents arrange a marriage for their child, or if someone pre-selects an infant for a hierarchical role, does it follow that they are being treated as a mere means? — Leontiskos

So going along with anti-natalism: if the reason you're creating a child is to use the child as a means to an end, and there is nothing more to it than that, then sure. — Moliere

Does anyone know of any dating apps or places to be, where people seeking a deep, long-term relationship with an intellectually substantive partner go? — Bob Ross

That's the crux of it. There can be a lot more:
Don't cause harm, and justify it by mitigating harm if you didn't have to.
Don't assume for others what is good for them, and worth suffering for, especially without consent.

All this comes down to the second formulation of not using people.
Don't use people, disrespecting their dignity, by putting them in harmful conditions because you have positive-ethical project you would like to see carried out. — schopenhauer1

All things being equal, certainly feeding the hungry is recognizing dignity. But if you save a person after putting them into harm, that would not be recognizing dignity. So, if you could have prevented the harm to someone, but instead did things that allowed harm, so that you can justify it by taking care of the problem afterwards, that would not be respecting someone's dignity. So it is a matter of preventative over palliative if possible, not bypassing preventative with the justification of palliative. — schopenhauer1

Most deontological ethics revolve around dignity. I think autonomy, non-malfeasance, non-paternalism, etc. fall under this ethic, and leads to one that is negative ethics. A positive ethics, "We must live for X cause/objective", becomes a violation of the respect of someone's dignity. — schopenhauer1

But my point was that maybe one cannot discern this is "a good thing"
...
Now, this EXTREMELY minor, but that's the point.. Everyday living is unclear and full of contradictions and hard to discern values that often compete. — schopenhauer1

In fact, his notion that people should do things to maintain a society because then we wouldn't be alive to enact our free will in the first place, assumes a certain goal that doesn't seem to itself have justification. "Well don't you want to live in a society so you can carry out your ends?" can be answered, "No, not if it means that suffering exists!" — schopenhauer1

Everyday living is unclear and full of contradictions and hard to discern values that often compete. Just following one version of an imperfect duty might override another version of an imperfect duty. — schopenhauer1

Now, it looks like you are prepared to say that Kant thinks that as long as we are following this imperfect duty out of respect for universal law, then it is all good. But then, how is the universalizable principle useful to tell us what to actually do? It becomes impotent. — schopenhauer1

You may think being an asshole isn't universalizable, but I might think it is. — schopenhauer1

...Moliere talks about a "contradiction in actions between the group of people," which is apparently social conflict. — Leontiskos

It does seem rather hard because how are we to determine if something like, “Everybody shouldn’t be an asshole because if everybody were assholes, we might live in a world without congeniality,” is universalizable? That he would say wouldn’t lead to a logical contradiction. Therefore, it’s an imperfect duty.

However, stealing would lead to a logical contradiction because property itself would be undermined if everyone followed this. I am sure that there are many maxim that if universalized would lead to contradictions or absurdities. It’s hard to figure out what rules would be necessary to universalize and what ones are not important enough for this universalization. — schopenhauer1

/ ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim
should become a universal law. Here mere conformity to law as such, without having as its basis some law determined for certain actions, is what
serves the will as its principle, and must so serve it, if duty is not to be
everywhere an empty delusion and a chimerical concept.

On a tangent based on last notions of CI.. IF CI cannot be practically reasoned as to "what" counts as universalizable, what practical use is it? — schopenhauer1

Does any of that fit with Kant? — frank

Be…..legal? An act that follows the moral law, is good, a tacit description representing the worthiness of being happy, whether or not such act is in accordance with jurisprudence.

I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to implicate contingent administrative codes, but…..legal?? I just had to bring that one up, donchaknow. I’d beg forgiveness for quibbling, but I ain’t like that. (Grin) — Mww

What is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the moral law should directly determine the will. If the determination of the will takes place in conformity indeed to the moral law, but only by means of a feeling, no matter of what kind, which has to be presupposed in order that the law may be sufficient to determine the will, and therefore not for the sake of the law, then the action will possess legality, but not morality.

An opinion to which you are certainly entitled, but I would offer that Kant, being the non-stop dualist he admits to being, wants it understood the c.i. also has a dualistic nature, re: its form and its content. As such the form is always the same, insofar as commands of reason cannot be self-contradictory, whatever be the act determinable by the formula of its content, which only expresses the relation between an imperfect subject and the objectively necessity…..lawful…..object of his will. — Mww

Granted that a maxim is a subjective principle, is it the principle, or the law of nature which necessarily follows from it, to which universalizing is aimed? I don’t think that which is predicated entirely on subjective constitution has the power of universality as stipulated by the conception of law, especially regarding nature, which in Kant is the totality of all possible things, which in turn manifests as any act by any other moral agent.

If a principle could be universalized, why go through all the trouble of objectively acting as if the mere subjective will, in which the principle resides in the form of pure practical reason, is sufficient causality for all rational beings to follow suit? It is, after all, respect for the law which grounds the interest of the will relative to itself, hence it is respect for the law as universally willed by one, that subsequently becomes the duty of another’s to endorse. In a perfectly moral world, of course, as determined by pure a priori metaphysics. — Mww

Granted that a maxim is a subjective principle, is it the principle, or the law of nature which necessarily follows from it, to which universalizing is aimed? I don’t think that which is predicated entirely on subjective constitution has the power of universality as stipulated by the conception of law, especially regarding nature, which in Kant is the totality of all possible things, which in turn manifests as any act by any other moral agent. — Mww

I think Simpson argues convincingly that at the heart of Kant is the universalization of a kind of communal self-interest, but his argument is doing to draw on the universalization formulation of the Categorical Imperative, along with Kant's conceptions of inclination and respect. If we consider the formulation of the Categorical Imperative which has to do with means and ends—which you may here allude to—then an argument against universalized communal self-interest is certainly available. — Leontiskos

I think the moral principles are sacred in that they are largely opaque to reason, and for Kant any explanation or justification for them will necessarily be limited and incomplete. I think Kant sees it as mistaken to ask for clear rational reasons why we ought to heed his moral principles. In a very weird but true way, for Kant if there are sufficient rational reasons for some act then that act is not necessarily a moral act, and therefore moral philosophy and complete rational explanations are like oil and water. — Leontiskos

With that said, I do think Kant in his pessimism is closer to Hobbes than Rosseau. In Religion within the bounds of Reason Alone Kant speaks about man as evil or corrupt by nature, and I am told that in his Perpetual Peace a very Hobbesian political approach emerges. — Leontiskos

). But I found this which seems to be about this subject. Moliere maybe this will help:
https://problemi.si/issues/p2018-2/03problemi_international_2018_2_kobe.pdf — schopenhauer1

I don’t think we have the authority to suggest for Kant anything he didn’t admit for himself.

I’m not saying he never mentioned the influence his religious upbringing may have had on the formulation of his moral philosophy, only that I’ve yet to find out about it. And from that it follows necessarily at least I have no warrant for understanding such philosophy as if it were conditioned by it. — Mww

I don't think there is one Protestant ethical outlook — frank

The broad idea is that Kant universalizes self-interest, which results in a communal ethic. — Leontiskos

Do you even know what Kant's (own) religion was? Answer: you don't. — tim wood

Throughout Kant’s writings, we find ample discussions of religious issues. These are, in many instances, clearly affirmative, though they are often framed within objections to theoretical reason’s encroachments into the domain that is instead proper to faith. Although his discussions of God and immortality are familiar to most Kantians, the Critical corpus moves well beyond just these. Especially in the 1790s, we find detailed treatments of biblical hermeneutics, miracles, revelation, as well as many distinctively Christian doctrines such as Original Sin, the Incarnation, Vicarious Atonement, and the Trinity.

Unfortunately, however, the many positive elements of Kant’s philosophy of religion have been eclipsed by its initial negative moments, moments not meant to oppose religion, but rather reflective of the Lutheranism (or more precisely, the anti-liturgical Lutheran Pietism) of his youth. Just as with Luther’s own negative polemics against religious despotism and scholastic arcana, we see in Kant a parallel dialectic, where he, rather than opposing religion, sought to free it from the “monopoly of the schools” and set it on a footing suitable to “the common human understanding” (Bxxxii). Hence, as we will discuss through this entry, the statement that Kant sought out the limits to knowledge [Wissen] in order to “make room for faith [Glaube]” (Bxxx), is not an empty bromide, but rather the key anthem for his overall philosophy of religion.

And just here an assumption I think unjustified, or that at least requires explanation to be sensible. His philosophy is formed from, comes out of, his religion? — tim wood

The point I made earlier is that Kant's thinking is reason based and religion is not. The result being that while it's possible to read Pietism into Kant - as well as almost anything else if a person has a viewpoint and ambition - it is a different matter altogether to read it out of him. . — tim wood

But the greater the claim, the more to be resisted, if for no other reason - aside from being wrong - that it tends to vitiate and trivialize Kant's thinking and its effects and value — tim wood

Exactly. It is focused on JL Austin's 'Sense and Sensibilia'. We made a comment on this text about this six or seven months ago. But I wanted to show that his theories also apply to the vast vocabulary of Spanish, and some words can be tricky. Like the word 'real' which is used by Austin. :smile: — javi2541997

Peter Simpson makes this point almost exactly. — Leontiskos

I am told that in Kant's later work he makes exceptions to the unknowableness of the noumenal on account of morality. — Leontiskos

Right: that is the crucial (anti-religious) assumption at play. — Leontiskos

I didn't quite follow that conclusion, either. But it is Protestant at least insofar as it is individualistic, subjectivistic, and arguably fideistic. — Leontiskos