Comments

  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    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

    Kant had no problem with choosing "Lying" as an example.

    In a plain-language sense, it seems to me that as long as someone's principle they're enacting could be enacted by everyone without undermining the principle then this maxim is a maxim which passes the first formulation of the C.I.

    If everyone follows the maxim "Do not lie" or "Always tell the truth", that would not lead to some contradiction in actions between the group of people who have adopted the maxim.

    I'm not sure a person can adopt the maxim that "Everybody should not. . . " -- that's not of the form of a maxim, is it? Individuals will maxims, so quoting from the Groundwork of metaphysics of morals:

    / 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.

    The clarification thereafter being that if the maxim was not universalizable then it would undermine the very basis of law.

    Since the ethic is based in freedom which one's we pick to universalize is kind of up to us -- but a meta-ethical description from the philosophy would say that if you picked a maxim which might only look universalizable but carries special exceptions to it then it would fail the first formulation and could not even be a candidate for the moral law (since it, somehow, undermines the notion of law itself)

    Given the large use of jurisprudence in Kant, and especially taking after his deduction, I take it that if we wanted others to adopt our maxims we'd have to present them in some sense as we would to any tribunal of reason: So we tell which ones we can universalize through rational judgment.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪Mww
    Oh, for sure. I mostly just wanted to show that he says some stuff about that somewhere -- and that's the first place I thought of to look.

    My inclination is to try and read them all as a whole, even though there are tensions all throughout the philosophy, and I certainly haven't worked out the whole coherent picture -- but it's still fun to think about and look at.

    Re: The original question, I've been convinced that it's better to say Lutheran, at least, if I'm going to make this association, because that seems less loaded (yet more familiar than "Pietist", which is what I was thinking with "Protestant": a familiar distinction)-- something I didn't consider was how heavily the Protestant/Catholic divide could figure into the statement, when I was more just thinking about how my own origins in a protestant religion get along with a lot of Kant's sentiments, and I think this was probably was initially attracted me to the philosophy: It was like an ethics I "felt", that could be articulated, but without all the metaphysical stories and strange arguments.

    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

    By the way I've been expressing Kant he's not providing it as a practical tool, but as a philosopher's interpretation of the everyday good person's morality.

    Though I don't think it's that hard, given Kant's examples and reading in context, what he has in mind. If not then I'd be on flimsy footing with respect to my assertion that we can differentiate the four formulations in the way I've attempted to make them more mutually supportive.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Does any of that fit with Kant? — frank

    I don't think so. I mean I can squint a bit, but not really.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    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

    From his Critique of Practical Reason:

    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.

    That's the bit I mean, though I think he means to use legal terms in philosophical ways (similar to the way he uses "deducation" in CPR)

    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

    I think it's the scope of the commands of reason which Kant narrows with his further iterations. Basically I'd be more dismissive towards the ethic unless I took his other formulations seriously because I think the first formulation makes sense from an ethic that wants to be universalizable, but I'd say this open him up to some pretty damning criticism.

    After all: What is self-contradictory about willing a contest of all between all? Isn't that basically one of Nietzsche's motifs (As @Leontiskos alluded to earlier, and which I agree with)? And surely, given the spirit of Kant's various texts, I don't think that's what his moral philosophy entails, exactly.

    Taking each articulation "fills out" the ethic, in my estimation, to be something worth thinking through more thoroughly than a reduction to the first articulation of the CI opens up the work to. Read in context it makes a good deal of sense, but if it's the only rule we have to follow in formulating maxims then it seems we're able to will many things which are consistent, but insofar that we are willing to accept that we are also going to be treated as mere means to an end, for instance, we could consistently break the second formulation (even though that goes against the spirit of the text -- but again, there's a notion that's not exactly pure reason...)

    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

    There's something funny in Kant here because he posits freedom as its own kind of causality. And so here we are in the world with our bodies as we know them being subject to the laws of nature, and yet we are these noumenal selves with free will able to act. Flipping through the Critique of Practical Reason to find some relevant quotes to think through I came across this (long) quote shortly after the last one in the same chapter:

    Reveal
    If now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can have of a pure practical reason, and by means of it, as shown by the Analytic, we find, along with a remarkable analogy between it and the theoretical, no less remarkable differences. As regards the theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational cognition a priori could be easily and evidently proved by examples from sciences (in which, as they put their principles to the test in so many ways by methodical use, there is not so much reason as in common knowledge to fear a secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure reason without the admixture of any empirical principle is practical of itself, this could only be shown from the commonest practical use of reason, by verifying the fact, that every man's natural reason acknowledges the supreme practical principle as the supreme law of his will- a law completely a priori and not depending on any sensible data. It was necessary first to establish and verify the purity of its origin, even in the judgement of this common reason, before science could take it in hand to make use of it, as a fact, that is, prior to all disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences that may be drawn from it. But this circumstance may be readily explained from what has just been said; because practical pure reason must necessarily begin with principles, which therefore must be the first data, the foundation of all science, and cannot be derived from it. It was possible to effect this verification of moral principles as principles of a pure reason quite well, and with sufficient certainty, by a single appeal to the judgement of common sense, for this reason, that anything empirical which might slip into our maxims as a determining principle of the will can be detected at once by the feeling of pleasure or pain which necessarily attaches to it as exciting desire; whereas pure practical reason positively refuses to admit this feeling into its principle as a condition. The heterogeneity of the determining principles (the empirical and rational) is clearly detected by this resistance of a practically legislating reason against every admixture of inclination, and by a peculiar kind of sentiment, which, however, does not precede the legislation of the practical reason, but, on the contrary, is produced by this as a constraint, namely, by the feeling of a respect such as no man has for inclinations of whatever kind but for the law only; and it is detected in so marked and prominent a manner that even the most uninstructed cannot fail to see at once in an example presented to him, that empirical principles of volition may indeed urge him to follow their attractions, but that he can never be expected to obey anything but the pure practical law of reason alone.

    The distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine of morality, in the former of which empirical principles constitute the entire foundation, while in the second they do not form the smallest part of it, is the first and most important office of the Analytic of pure practical reason; and it must proceed in it with as much exactness and, so to speak, scrupulousness, as any geometer in his work. The philosopher, however, has greater difficulties to contend with here (as always in rational cognition by means of concepts merely without construction), because he cannot take any intuition as a foundation (for a pure noumenon). He has, however, this advantage that, like the chemist, he can at any time make an experiment with every man's practical reason for the purpose of distinguishing the moral (pure) principle of determination from the empirical; namely, by adding the moral law (as a determining principle) to the empirically affected will (e.g., that of the man who would be ready to lie because he can gain something thereby). It is as if the analyst added alkali to a solution of lime in hydrochloric acid, the acid at once forsakes the lime, combines with the alkali, and the lime is precipitated. Just in the same way, if to a man who is otherwise honest (or who for this occasion places himself only in thought in the position of an honest man), we present the moral law by which he recognises the worthlessness of the liar, his practical reason (in forming a judgement of what ought to be done) at once forsakes the advantage, combines with that which maintains in him respect for his own person (truthfulness), and the advantage after it has been separated and washed from every particle of reason (which is altogether on the side of duty) is easily weighed by everyone, so that it can enter into combination with reason in other cases, only not where it could be opposed to the moral law, which reason never forsakes, but most closely unites itself with.

    But it does not follow that this distinction between the principle of happiness and that of morality is an opposition between them, and pure practical reason does not require that we should renounce all claim to happiness, but only that the moment duty is in question we should take no account of happiness. It may even in certain respects be a duty to provide for happiness; partly, because (including skill, wealth, riches) it contains means for the fulfilment of our duty; partly, because the absence of it (e.g., poverty) implies temptations to transgress our duty. But it can never be an immediate duty to promote our happiness, still less can it be the principle of all duty. Now, as all determining principles of the will, except the law of pure practical reason alone (the moral law), are all empirical and, therefore, as such, belong to the principle of happiness, they must all be kept apart from the supreme principle of morality and never be incorporated with it as a condition; since this would be to destroy all moral worth just as much as any empirical admixture with geometrical principles would destroy the certainty of mathematical evidence, which in Plato's opinion is the most excellent thing in mathematics, even surpassing their utility.

    Instead, however, of the deduction of the supreme principle of pure practical reason, that is, the explanation of the possibility of such a knowledge a priori, the utmost we were able to do was to show that if we saw the possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause, we should also see not merely the possibility, but even the necessity, of the moral law as the supreme practical law of rational beings, to whom we attribute freedom of causality of their will; because both concepts are so inseparably united that we might define practical freedom as independence of the will on anything but the moral law. But we cannot perceive the possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause, especially in the world of sense; we are fortunate if only we can be sufficiently assured that there is no proof of its impossibility, and are now, by the moral law which postulates it, compelled and therefore authorized to assume it. However, there are still many who think that they can explain this freedom on empirical principles, like any other physical faculty, and treat it as a psychological property, the explanation of which only requires a more exact study of the nature of the soul and of the motives of the will, and not as a transcendental predicate of the causality of a being that belongs to the world of sense (which is really the point). They thus deprive us of the grand revelation which we obtain through practical reason by means of the moral law, the revelation, namely, of a supersensible world by the realization of the otherwise transcendent concept of freedom, and by this deprive us also of the moral law itself, which admits no empirical principle of determination. Therefore it will be necessary to add something here as a protection against this delusion and to exhibit empiricism in its naked superficiality.



    But my tl;dr understanding here is that it's the principle is aimed at universalization. So we have Kant who believes that lying is always bad, no matter the circumstances, and he holds it as a principle everyone ought follow. While we are all free agents, and so can choose our own ends, when we hold a principle to universalize it we obviously would like it if others followed suit -- that is, if they recognized that we are also end-makers as they are, and so if we respect one another as moral beings of choice we'll come to some rules just by the necessity of having to get along in a moral community.


    So in the long run, supposing everyone adopts the same maxim, then the moral law becomes as if it were a natural law -- it's empirical, and everyone follows it, and so it is indistinguishable from natural law.

    However, what makes this possible (again, in my head-cannon) is that there are two kinds of causality, one of which is a category for theoretical reason, and the other which is a category for practical reason, and since these are just two different powers of reason at the center of the thinking subject we are free to employ them as we see fit -- and Kant makes it clear in the quote above that theoretical reason is believed because of the success of science, and practical reason due to an appeal to common sense.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    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

    Yeh, I'm of the opinion that the three formulations are not "really the same" as Kant claims. The first one provides an abstract foundation that any morality which is aiming to universalize principles must adhere to -- the second one adds more to that, but Kant claiming that it is the same provides a hint as to what is morally appealing to reason, I think. The third is a kind of consistency condition not just on the maxim but based on the first two. In valuing other people as ends-makers we recognize that just as we are moral agents making choices of principle so others' must be seen as well, and the fourth is where I think the influence from Rousseau is strongest.

    But I don't think the collective will is one of self-interest, exactly. It's more like, in the long run of humanity, the final product that comes about when moral agents are acting within a moral community.

    But does the first formulation really entail that we care about other ends-makers? Couldn't we universalize a maxim that the great dominate, and accept our fate in the war of all against all? What makes these four formulations the only formulations, given that each one -- while they paint a consistent picture of an ethic -- doesn't necessitate the others?

    That's where I think this sort of elucidation of Kant's religion and moral commitments make his ethic more understandable. It's in the particular examples, and in making sense of all four formulations, that I think we get a sense of his ethic.

    The unity of it comes down to human freedom to judge while recognizing the rights of other judgers. (the part that makes it particularly Christian, at least, is in how principles have to be universalized in a seemingly fair way between people -- a way which respects everyone's freedom and say. at least I'd say this is the fair reading)


    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

    I'd put it that it's just a different kind of rationality. For him it's the necessary conditions for any particular moral principles one holds to that the philosopher spells out -- but the philosopher does not need to spell these things out because common, good people already know what is good. There is no deep technical knowledge: One does not lie because it is against the moral law. It's the simple, straightforward precepts of the common religion which follow the categorical imperative, or at least that his moral philosophy is aiming at.

    I think he's of the belief that people already pretty much know what is good, hence the emphasis on conscience.

    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

    There's a way of reading Rousseau which puts the popular will as a kind of agent. But I'd emphasize the "bottom up" reading more. The popular will is the result of individual agents willing. It's the call for freedom, and progress, which I'd emphasize from Rousseau to Kant. While it's true that Kant expresses a "warped wood" theory of human nature, it seems that he also believes in human progress else he wouldn't talk about the need for an afterlife to fulfill perfection. Also it makes sense of his insistence that we should develop our talents, and other such stuff.

    He, like many philosophers, expresses the dismay of human nature in their time, but I think he's still a progressive liberal for all that.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ). 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

    Thanks for this. Still pittering along through the article, but yup -- this is a more detailed treatment of what I'm thinking through
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    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

    That's fair. Take a peek at the SEP article I linked and let me know what you think.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    I don't think there is one Protestant ethical outlook — frank

    That's true.

    Though the same can be said for Christianity as a whole, too.

    The protestant bits are what's already been highlighted, and comes more from my familiarity with protestant churches. He "fits" in with them and it's part of his origins as a person. It's his historical lineage and influence.

    "Protestant" maybe isn't any thesis at all, but a historical category?
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    The broad idea is that Kant universalizes self-interest, which results in a communal ethic. — Leontiskos

    I'd push back here a bit. Self-interest is definitely a Hobbessian point, and to some extent Locke, but Rousseau -- by my understanding -- is more a romantic. "Man is born free, and yet everywhere is in chains"

    The chains here being dogmatism: Sapere Aude, in theoretical and practical life.

    Also since he believes that self-interest is something which makes an action not-moral -- an act can follow the moral law and so be legal, but it's the motivation towards the moral law which qualifies a particular as as moral or not moral -- I'd say that Kant inherits some of this Romanticism with respect to human beings: We are valuable ends unto ourselves.

    In a way what becomes sacred is less the metaphysics of morals and more the individual making choices (with the strict confines around that so that many moral individuals acting together can eventually find consistency with one another, ala Perpetual Peace)
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Do you even know what Kant's (own) religion was? Answer: you don't. — tim wood

    . The SEP article I linked states the following:

    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.

    Which seems to indicate that Kant's religion is Lutheran, and Pietist. Do I know it now, or is this not enough to infer that his religion is Lutheran, and Pietist?

    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
    What about this part of the article I linked previously? Are the authors of that article stating unwarranted assumptions?

    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

    Was it a point, or an assertion?

    I think that's the part where we're disagreeing -- religion, in Kant's writing, is bounded by reason, and so it is reasonable to be religious: these things aren't in conflict in Kant's philosophy, but rather this was the whole point of it: to figure out how one could believe in both science and theology from a rational perspective.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    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

    In looking at the ideas and their descent/influences/etc., I have no interest in trivializing any thinker. What would the point be? I like to see as much as possible of a thinker's ideas, where they come from and where they go to understand a perspective, not to trivialize.

    I don't think him being a Pietist -- and the similarity between his philosophy and the religion from which it was formed -- undermines or trivializes the philosophy. As you say you still have to address the arguments and such.

    It's more that the religious origin gives me a perspective on him as a thinker because it makes sense of the philosophy -- in the formal sense of his ethics then, yeah, no religion is necessary. That's a big part of enlightenment thinking, and he's an enlightenment thinker.

    Why would the religious origins and influences trivialize him, in your view? That's certainly not my aim. My aim was more to elucidate to someone who didn't understand the distinction between theoretical and practical reason.
  • Filosofía de la lengua española.
    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

    Also I don't think there's an English equivelent to estar/ser, which is very interesting. (EDIT: On that note, it'd be interesting to read a Spanish translation of Heidegger's Being and Time....)
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Peter Simpson makes this point almost exactly. — Leontiskos

    Oh yeah? Where?

    It's always nice to find agreement.

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

    Not quite, in my estimation. I'd prefer to say that he argues that there is more than one legitimate use or power of reason other than theoretical (scientific) knowledge.

    Knowledge is still limited. There's the moral "proof" of God, but it's not the same as what we usually mean by knowledge. You don't come to know God through his argument, you come to realize belief in God is necessary for a moral being.

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

    Yeh. Which, especially considering it's Kant, I'd say isn't warranted at all. Even in his philosophical work he's pro-religion, while obviously arguing for rationality too.

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

    What do you make of the syllogism above? Where Kant is a Lutheran (due to Pietism), and all Lutherns are Protestants, therefore....?


    ↪tim wood
    has a good point in that he's not really "claimable" by religion -- in the culture wars sense -- but this is part of what I love about Kant as a philosopher. He cared about consistency enough to make sacrifices to it.

    I wouldn't go so far to "claim" Kant for any side at all. He's a philosopher that cares more about consistency than religion/atheism -- and his philosophy is even addressing a lot of those points that come up, so perhaps this is why he's attractive to both a/theists.
  • Is Passivity the Norm?
    ↪Mikie


    "Leader" isn't a character trait, but a social position. Leaders have followers.

    But what are they following, and how do you tell who is leading? Wouldn't it depend upon what the leader wants?

    If so then I think leaders are everywhere. People take on responsibility and leadership roles in various capacities as long as they care about something. This doesn't need a social designation or a plan or something along those lines. The rule is "Leaders have followers" -- so if someone doesn't want to do anything because it won't matter anyway and everyone else follows them then "waiting around for something to happen" is the state of affairs, not the rule. The rule is "Follow the leader", and the leader has various disgruntled reasons for convincing everyone to not put in any effort.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪tim wood
    ↪Mww
    ↪schopenhauer1
    ↪Wayfarer
    ↪schopenhauer1


    Pietism is a member of the set "Protestant", because it's Lutheran, and all Lutherans are Protestants.

    I'm still hesitant, and starting to see how this is a technical question in the philosophy of religion more than about Kant at all: It seems we all agree on Kant, it's the other side that's not convincing -- but then that'd be to ask "What is Protestantism?", which seems to be the sort of set or word which does not have necessary/sufficient conditions -- so there's a lot of ambiguity in the assertion.
  • Filosofía de la lengua española.
    ↪javi2541997


    Hablo (Escribo? Leo?) español pero hace seis años desde era parta del grupo de hablaban de español, y no hablàbamos filosofía.

    Espero practicar española y filosofía en español.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Though then that's a Some Protestants are Calvinists. Calvinists are Protestants (flipped it about in my head, I always do that)

    Must an ethic obtain for all sub-sets, or can the set of sets have properties separate from the sets it contains?
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪schopenhauer1
    That'd disqualify it from strict Calvinists (although, funnily enough, I'm reading a book going over some of this history right now -- has to do with Locke and the history of the work ethic -- and the reaction to the strict Calvinist doctrine actually took off because they somehow monkey-logicked their way into believing in both the importance of good choices and predeterminism -- the work ethic was very much still part of their culture. (it basically amounted to evidence that you were among the elect -- you're predestined, but if you're not even good then surely you're not elect!)
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    But one would conflict with the other, without sufficiently critical examination of the differences in the conceptions and principles by which each obtains its respective truth.

    “…. it is only in this way that the doctrine of morality and the doctrine of nature are confined within their proper limits. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which (…) establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena….”

    …and to be confined to its own limits just indicates, by extension, our own cognitive limits, relative to the possibility of experience of any of the objects of one or the other, science or morality. Experience being, of course, the final arbiter of empirical knowledge, all else being merely logical inference.     — Mww

    I agree with respect to theoretical knowledge. And you're right that this is the sort of conflict Kant mitigates with his philosophy: theoretical knowledge of science, practical knowledge for ethics (which surely must assume Christianity, he indicates at times).

    But I think there's more to the use of practical reason -- and then more confusingly, later, the powers of judgment -- than inference alone. That's what the first CI is about, right? And I think the first CI is complemented by the 2nd CI, even though Kant claims they are equivalent.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪Wayfarer
    The part I'm questioning at the moment is whether or not it's correct to call it protestant, after all. The connection and similarity to Pietism is surely there, so it's fair to say there's a Lutheran influence but it might generalize enough -- to say Buddhism, which I'm much less familiar with -- to not just be protestant, and obviously there are inward-facing Catholics too it might be unfair to get that specific -- perhaps I'm relying too much on Kant's particular religion to classify the ethics, even when it's filled out.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Is Pietism rational? From online: "... is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life." Depends maybe at first on what you believe, but later on what you grant and presuppose to be true, and how and in what way. Thus the rationality contingent on what the ground is and how it is determined. Nourishing? To whom, in what way, for what purpose? — tim wood

    I'd say that, at least by way of my understanding of Kant, that Pietism could be rational in Kant's system insofar that one doesn't claim to have a scientific knowledge of it, but rather employs the practical power of reason which is at least a legitimate use of reason if not the same as scientific knowledge.

    This a short answer. Is it enough? — tim wood

    I'm more thinking on the 2nd critique than the first -- not that they are separable, but their topics are different. The questions of reason that reason cannot but help to ask about are all with respect to theoretical knowledge. With respect to practical knowledge they take on a different . . . uh.. . role? It's hard to generalize when already talking at such a level of generality.

    So no -- the short answer is not enough! :D
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    sharing this bit from ye olde SEP:

    The postulate of immortality is typically found alongside Kant’s discussions of the postulate of God. He regards both as necessary conditions for the realization of the highest good, though the function of this postulate undergoes a number of revisions through the Critical period.

    (Also, that article opens with life details and highlights some concepts which come from Pietist influence)

    Still plan on responding, but that's what I have time for this morning.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    My own five-cent analysis is that Kant, whom we're told was brought up Pietist, at some point found it no-longer nourishing; yet finding some of it compelling, tried to reason out why it should be compelling. It being helpful to remember that he is among humanity's strongest thinkers, as well as a professional grade mathematician and world class in physics. — tim wood

    Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational?

    And if that were so, why would Kant claim that it's important for practical reason, in general, to believe in God or the immortality of the soul, for instance? (the focus on the intent of an actor is also something important here -- something that fleshes out the choosing of maxims in the formal system)
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    If Kant doesn’t implicate his own religious background for the a priori pure metaphysics of his moral philosophy, why do we need to pay heed to it? — Mww

    I'm thinking the Critique of Practical Reason here where he talks about the three ideas which cannot be known theoretically, but which -- for the summum bunnum -- must be assumed for a practical reason at all. Immortality, Freedom, and God seem to fit with the overturning of an authority in a church to put the authority in the person who wills. (which is the bit I got from thinking that Kant is protestant -- the centering of the subject over an authority)

    Take this passage from the Critique of PurePractical Reason, where we can see some obvious Christian lineage in his ideas:
    Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum, then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason (by which I mean a theoretical proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an unconditional a priori practical law.

    It also makes sense of his insistence on truth-telling as a universal rule, I think: Whereas most would say sometimes expediency justifies lying, the universal nature of prescriptions gets along well with the Christian faith. (one of the reasons the "specificity" argument doesn't hit too hard for Kant's deontology, to me -- the one where you can make a maxim so specific that it can always be generalized. It makes sense according to the metaphysic -- but it goes against the spirit)


    I think Kant writing Kant wanted Kant to be understood as a pure rational being, “….worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends….”, rather than a religious man. — Mww

    Oh he certainly wants, and even demonstrates, that he is a rational person -- though I'm not so keen on pure rational being. But I think most importantly to Kant is that he'd assert that being a religious man is not in conflict with being a rational, scientific man. It seems to me that's almost a "in a nutshell" explanation of Kant: How to believe in both science and religion without destroying either. (OR, for thems who want to fight, while destroying both :D )
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪Wayfarer
    OK this was nice to read because it's giving me better words to what was kind of just a feeling that seemed to work for making sense of theoretical/practical belief, though kind of roughly parellel to what I was thinking.

    I think recognizing its formal expression is important too though because I think Kant's deontology sets up existential thinking: to understand Kant as Kant writing Kant, we should pay heed to his religious background (and this "fills out" the formal ethic quite a bit), but looking at it as a formal system if all one needs to do is be consistent and wish everyone else would follow the maxim you can justify a bit more than Kant seemed to believe possible.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪Wayfarer
    Oh, I posted it here because it was something of a half-baked thought, but I thought it interesting enough to still talk about.
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    I’d say this is pretty close to a Kantian ethical perspective, but I’d hesitate to call it Protestant. — Mww

    Fair. Maybe it'd be better to say -- as I read Kant it seems his motivation for writing the ethic comes from that religious perspective, but he is, of course, attempting to universalize beyond his own perspective.

    The thought came from a casual conversation I was having with someone who is not really into philosophy, but the analogy seemed to work to make sense of some of the ideas -- the person seemed to be struggling with the idea that one should believe in God but cannot know that God exists (talking Kant here -- the practical vs. the theoretical reason). My thinking on Kant is that while it's intended to be universal, it's still sort of the old Protestantism at heart -- while it's all rationalism and duty you are still free to pick your maxims. So, in a sense, it's the conscience that's the guide, though morality only comes from following our maxims that are in accord with the categorical imperative out of a sense of respect for the moral law itself.

    It's like an inward-facing version of Rousseau's social contract: the necessary conditions for forming a moral society from the perspective of a rational agent choosing.

    (though posting it here to see if it's a bad analogy after all)
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    ↪180 Proof
    I'd be hesitant to go that far, but you're right about him being a Pietist.

    He believed in faith, but wanted it to also be limited by reason, at least by my understanding.

    It's his belief, which he doesn't claim is knowledge or necessary but just how he sees things, that we must believe in those three things -- god, immortality, free will -- that makes me think he's a protestant.

    Maybe Christian is better. It's more the focus on interiority and belief that made me think protestant.
  • Which theory of time is the most evidence-based?
    ↪Truth Seeker
    Yes, there can be mistakes when copying genes — Truth Seeker

    If so then @unenlightened's point stands: there can be no mistakes when copying genes since we are not intelligently designed by a God or a team of Gods.
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    ↪Srap Tasmaner
    :up: :flower:
  • The Barber of Seville
    British barbers regularly cut their clients throats instead and dispose of their bodies in meat pies, to avoid this sort of difficulty. — unenlightened

    The USians contract it out and sell the meat pies to various NGO's funded by grants who distribute it to those "in need"
  • Vervaeke-Henriques 'Transcendent Naturalism'
    ↪Wayfarer
    ↪Tom Storm


    I second Tom.

    I still read you, though often can't respond.

    I know we disagree on much, but that, to me, is the point of being here: to hear others.
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    ↪sime
    Such behavior would never be tolerated by Kant scholars!

    ;) :D
    ↪schopenhauer1


    Honestly I think it comes with the territory of reading "the greats" -- they are great because they inspire thought, and you don't really have much of a choice on how much charity or skepticism you want to apply to the greats on a first reading, especially when their idiom isn't easy to comprehend. It's enough of a feat to make it explicitly coherent that criticism of the idea becomes less interesting than what the writing can inspire or which interpretation is better.
  • Not reading Hegel.
    Anyway, connections, connections, and I'm planning on coming back to this thread properly shortly - when the planting season and decorating season is past its peak. — unenlightened

    Hegel has been here for a couple centuries, give or take, so I'm sure he'll be around after the more important things.

    I look forward to reading your posts and talking Hegel.
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent
    (Sticking here to the bits where I have sincere commitments)

    Have you given examples? I searched for "wants to be" on the first five pages on the thread and didn't find any occurrences. — Leontiskos

    Not with those words, no -- to be fair to you I'm trying to make a position mostly to understand the idea, so I'm changing my position as I go along; I'm engaged in a creative endeavor. I don't have some firmly worked out idea here, though through the game we have managed to touch upon some possible interesting avenues of conversation.

    The examples I have in mind are the angry man with his friend who he pushes aside, the guilty man apologizing, and the penitent man.

    a person who is surrounded by people who shame them can feel guilt for that particular thing and want to change, or they can feel anger and define themselves against that group, and perhaps they can feel both at the same time in roughly similar proportion (and this is where the sense of free will comes from). Each leads to a kind of articulatable ethic that justifies the choice

    at least in the sense of using "wants to be". In the scenario where he acts on anger "X wants to be alpha", or perhaps something more personal like the person insulted his wife: "X wants to be defender"

    Where he backs down "X wants to be friend" -- he's promised, and friends keep promises.

    Where he's guilty "X wants to be accepted"

    Either the choice leads to the ethic or attachment to the ethic leads to the choice. It can't be both, because two things cannot simultaneously cause each other. — Leontiskos

    Why not?

    Gravitation works that way. The earth pulls on the apple, and the apple pulls on the earth -- it's just the earth is bigger so it's a more noticeable pull, but they simultaneously cause each other to meet.

    But you aren't appealing to his anger, you are appealing to the justification of his anger, like I said <here>. This is not appeal to emotion; it is appeal to something which justifies an emotion. — Leontiskos

    I'm appealing to his anger. It's the right kind of anger. The words we make up after the fact notice the distinction between the right kind and the wrong kind, but the words aren't the appeal.

    But this might be back to philosophy of emotions.
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent
    So you agree with me that your theory of emotion-subjectivism is not a (cognitive) science? — Leontiskos

    Yes. I'd say that one can be a cognitivist without thinking that ethics is a cognitive science. I don't think ethics is a science.

    To lay my cards on the table, I don't really want to argue over a thesis that you don't hold, especially when that thesis has no authorities to legitimate it. It doesn't seem to me that it will be fruitful. I would rather talk about a thesis that you actually hold, such as error theory or a theory of emotion or a theory of moral 'oughts', etc. It would be different if the thesis had philosophical authorities behind it, but I don't see that moral subjectivism does. — Leontiskos

    Heh, fair. I'll stick to that then. Though it started to feel like I'd be veering off too far from the OP, so now I have ideas for threads. (being a lazy sort, we'll see how long it takes before one gets posted ;) )
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent
    I am basically arguing:

    P1: Ss relate to Ps in manner R.
    P2: All Bs are Ss.
    C: Bs relate to Ps in manner R.

    Although, this isn’t completely accurate...but the accurate version is what I gave.

    If there cannot exist a relation between Ss & Ps and every B is an S, then it plainly follows that the same relation cannot exist between Bs & Ps.     — Bob Ross

    Mkay, that makes sense to me now.

    But then it seems to go back to whether or not the subjectivist would accept P1, or your rendition of P2. While P1 is uncontroversial in a common-sense way, a philosopher may have a reason to endorse truth-coherentism, or a difference in domain between stances and beliefs to claim that P2 is false, and yet All B's are still cognitive for all that.

    It seems that if the subjectivist is a correspondence theorist, and they accept P2, then they have an inconsistency. But is that inconsistency fatal to the overall idea?

    In my experience, usually not. Though it seems this idea is eluding me.
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent
    It seems incomplete: independent...of what? — Bob Ross

    I was thinking we can stuff all those details into the name "Independent" -- but I'm mostly just after the basic form because I've been missing it, which you provided in your follow up.


    P1: ¬∃sp (Stance<s, p>→ p) && ¬∃sp (Stance<s, p>→ ¬p)
    { There does not exist any s and p, such that s is a stance about p and s entails that p is true; and there does not exist any s and p, such that s is a stance about p and s entails that p is false }

    P2: ∀bp ( Belief<b, p> → Stance<b, p> )
    { For every b and p such that b is a belief about p, b is a stance about p. }

    C1: ¬∃bp (Belief<b, p>→ p) && ¬∃bp (Belief<b, p>→ ¬p)
    { There does not exist any b and p, such that b is a belief about p and b entails that p is true; and there does not exist any b and p, such that b is a belief about p and b entails that p is false }

    The rule of inference is from the existential and universal quantifiers: in short, if there cannot exist some relation for Xs and Ys and all Bs are Xs, then the same relation cannot exist for Bs and Ys.     — Bob Ross

    OK so...

    P1: All B's are X's
    P2: X's ~Relate-to Y's
    C: B's ~Relate-to Y's

    So rather than

    All P
    All Q

    it's

    All P
    Some Q

    (with a middle term relating them)

    That work?

    (And yes, the sentential form helped a lot -- I was struggling from the plain-language to the logic, and then I was struggling with the predicates because that's all beyond my actual education and only "gleaned" at this point -- usually I just translate predicates into single-variables or bound sentences so it's still propositional just not predicate. And I wasn't see the All/Some or the All/there-exists-a structure until you explicitly pointed it out)
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent


    P1: A stance taken on the trueness or falseness of something, is independent of the trueness or falseness of that something.
    P2: A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the trueness or falseness of a proposition.
    C1: Therefore, a belief about a proposition cannot make that proposition true or false.


    P1: ¬∃sp (Stance<s, p>→ p) && ¬∃sp (Stance<s, p>→ ¬p)
    P2: ∀bp ( Belief<b, p> → Stance<b, p> )
    C1: ¬∃bp (Belief<b, p>→ p) && ¬∃bp (Belief<b, p>→ ¬p)

    Couple things to note:
    1. The only part that isn’t just standard predicate logic, is that I am representing the predicate ‘stance’ with two typename arguments: position 1 is what is the stance and position 2 is what the stance is about (e.g., if s is a stance about p, then it is true that Stance<s, p>).

    2. The transition, in sentential form, from a ‘something’ to a ‘proposition’ is implicit. As can be seen in the logic, it doesn’t matter if one sticks with ‘something’ or refers to specifically a ‘proposition’.

    P2 is a definition; P1 is an assertion about the nature of a stance and how it relates to what it is about.     — Bob Ross

    How do you feel about this rendition:

    All stances are independent
    All beliefs are stances
    All beliefs are independent

    ?

    That makes sense to me.

    I'm not sure what the rule of inference you're using in the formalization. It doesn't appear to follow to me.

    The notes help though.

    EDIT: Another thought I have is with respect to the domain. P1 seems generally uncontroversial -- our stances towards some proposition don't imply whether that proposition is true or false (although I think I'd carve out the weird sentences for other topics, like the Liar's). So a subjectivist could deny 2 on the basis that beliefs don't imply stances with respect to P -- the belief could be "Everyone deserves q", and the stance could be "As a member of Everyone, John deserves q"

    The belief, in this case, while being clearly related to the stance, is different from the stance and so would not fall to the criticism that there's a contradiction.
  • Moral Subjectism Is Internally Inconsistent
    It is not supposed to: 1 matches P2. P1 is more general: it is the major premise. — Bob Ross

    OK, then maybe I'm back to saying it's an instance of begging the question, after all. :rofl: @Lionino

    P1: A stance taken on the trueness or falseness of something, is independent of the trueness or falseness of that something.
    P2: A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the trueness or falseness of a proposition.
    C1: Therefore, a belief about a proposition cannot make that proposition true or false.     — Bob Ross

    I'm (clearly) finding the argument hard to understand.

    P1 reads like a definition to me. It defines that a stance-taken within the domain of true/false somethings has the property of independence with respect to that same something (be it propositions or objects, it doesn't matter -- just some true something and stance-taken)

    P2 also reads like a definition to me. So in some sense it seems that the concepts, by definition, and through an informal logic, leads to C1. But what if we formalized a bit? How would it read? Syllogistically starting with "A" in P1 and "A" in P2 suggests that the major premise is "Some P" and the minor "Some Q", which is an invalid form.

    How would you render it formally? Any logic works for me.

    I'll keep it to this because it seems I'm not understanding so I don't want to go off on yet another tangent before I understand.
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