My reading list work continues. I've read everything on the list now and have summarized everything but one thing. The last remaining detail is to summarize Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant (the Doctrine of Virtue section only). I've been working scuriously on all of this and kind of tired of it.
In large part, I learned that Kant's position has much more subtlety than I had foreseen. I think the problems with the GW do, however, underlie much of the reset of the project as I had imagined. The basic issue is whether ethics is wholly constituted by its formal part. Two problems arise. First, if ethics is its formal part, then does the material part become non-ethical or anti-ethical when it affects human behavior. Second, can ethical problems undergo formalization without loosing meaning.
The second problem arises in objections such as the "Tennis on Sunday" objection where actions that are innocuous on a common sense analysis appear to be immoral according to the test of universalization. The issue is how do identify the maxim of our action such that it includes the right particulars and excludes the wrong ones. For instance, can we qualify a prohibition about sex to allow for marriage but say adultery is wrong? Can we allow for lying when the circumstances make our choice contingent on the threat of immediate harm to others?
In the case of the last question, Kant resoundingly and repeatedly says no and holds that lying is always wrong. Given this datum, are there any facts about the world that can be included in a test of universalization? If not, then we cannot prohibit adultery as illicit sex and allow marriage as licit sex. We might be able to prohibit adultery as promise-breaking or some other criterion. But then it seems that we can allow untruth to be uttered as long as the maxim behind its action is on the principle of saving life.
This, however, won't do, because the basic principle is one principle as far as Kant is concerned. So there's a number of issues to be resolved here that require Kant's simple principle to perform some interesting acrobatics to avoid blatantly wrong positions.
The first problem exposes a very different limitation of Kant's ethics. Kant's basic presentation says that acting from anything other than the maxim which corresponds to universal law is wrong. This includes acting from any inclination we might have -- whether it is fleeting or consistent. On a first analysis, this makes Kant's view seem incompatible with doing someone because you love them.
Nancy Sherman has written a good deal about this trying to overcome this reading by seeing Kant as closer to Aristotle. The issue with her solution, however, is that she is short on text at the most crucial moments. Depending mostly on bits from Anthropology, she argues that Kant has a more nuanced view of emotions than GW allows. The issue, however, is that the ethical works consistently have Kant admitting only one emotion: respect. Respect, as Kant defines it (which differs from how Sherman seems to think of it), is a singular emotion: an objective feeling that is respect for the law. In GW and again in MM, Kant explains that this is unlike any other feeling -- and that it is wholly separate from these feelings which arise from animal nature and inclination. Instead, it arises from our humanity (specifically our reason).
In large part, I learned that Kant's position has much more subtlety than I had foreseen. I think the problems with the GW do, however, underlie much of the reset of the project as I had imagined. The basic issue is whether ethics is wholly constituted by its formal part. Two problems arise. First, if ethics is its formal part, then does the material part become non-ethical or anti-ethical when it affects human behavior. Second, can ethical problems undergo formalization without loosing meaning.
The second problem arises in objections such as the "Tennis on Sunday" objection where actions that are innocuous on a common sense analysis appear to be immoral according to the test of universalization. The issue is how do identify the maxim of our action such that it includes the right particulars and excludes the wrong ones. For instance, can we qualify a prohibition about sex to allow for marriage but say adultery is wrong? Can we allow for lying when the circumstances make our choice contingent on the threat of immediate harm to others?
In the case of the last question, Kant resoundingly and repeatedly says no and holds that lying is always wrong. Given this datum, are there any facts about the world that can be included in a test of universalization? If not, then we cannot prohibit adultery as illicit sex and allow marriage as licit sex. We might be able to prohibit adultery as promise-breaking or some other criterion. But then it seems that we can allow untruth to be uttered as long as the maxim behind its action is on the principle of saving life.
This, however, won't do, because the basic principle is one principle as far as Kant is concerned. So there's a number of issues to be resolved here that require Kant's simple principle to perform some interesting acrobatics to avoid blatantly wrong positions.
The first problem exposes a very different limitation of Kant's ethics. Kant's basic presentation says that acting from anything other than the maxim which corresponds to universal law is wrong. This includes acting from any inclination we might have -- whether it is fleeting or consistent. On a first analysis, this makes Kant's view seem incompatible with doing someone because you love them.
Nancy Sherman has written a good deal about this trying to overcome this reading by seeing Kant as closer to Aristotle. The issue with her solution, however, is that she is short on text at the most crucial moments. Depending mostly on bits from Anthropology, she argues that Kant has a more nuanced view of emotions than GW allows. The issue, however, is that the ethical works consistently have Kant admitting only one emotion: respect. Respect, as Kant defines it (which differs from how Sherman seems to think of it), is a singular emotion: an objective feeling that is respect for the law. In GW and again in MM, Kant explains that this is unlike any other feeling -- and that it is wholly separate from these feelings which arise from animal nature and inclination. Instead, it arises from our humanity (specifically our reason).
Labels: Kant, Problems, Reading List
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