[lit-ideas] Achtung: I Manual (Kant) Coming at U

There are maxims and there are maxims. Kant would have probably subscribed
to the view ascribed to Groucho Marx, that one should follow the maxim, the
practical principle, "If there is a club that would have me as a member, I
wouldn't join." That is, he would probably have preferred not to subscribe
to this view--or any view, for that matter, ascribable to a "pathologically
affected will." Such a subscription, a signing-up on  somebody else's dotted
line, under someone else's aegis, went against his maxim of acting only
according to universalizable maxims. Only such a maxim--"Nur dieser
[categorical imperative] gilt für den Willen jedes vernünftigen Wesens, und
ist autonomisch; die hypothetischen Imperativen hingegen sind heteronomisch
[Only this (categorical imperative) is applicable for the wills of every
reasonable being, and is autonomous; the hypothetical imperatives, on the
other hand, are heteronomous]"--deserves our total and unconditional
respect, or Achtung, even reverence (reverentia).

A week back I threw out a challenge: Find a dictionary or literary critic,
scholar, whatever who would admit that the actual pronunciation of
Houyhnhnms is "[imagine your own horse sounds]," and nothing human
resembling the way you would (at least try to) pronounce "Houyhnhnms." I
promised a tip of my virtual hat--my sign of respect, my bowing to, my
bowing my head to this imagined meeter of my challenge. The French say
"Chapeau!" The Germans, "Respekt!" I would almost say, I believe with Kant,
that it is the most natural thing in the world to acknowledge the talent of
another, but Kant puts in words the source of this feeling of "naturalness":
it is this Achtung, respect, and more specifically, *respect for the law*,
"the consciousness of the immediate subordination of my will to a law and
its determination by it. . . . [This] respect extends not only to the law
itself, but to everything we think in accordance with it, as legal and moral
or as the object of the law of one's duties, for example, dutiful actions;
to rights; to law-abiding or even _talented_ persons (my emphasis), to the
extent that we ascribe the development of their abilities _to the legal use
of their freedom_ (m.e.); to our own (Selbstschätzung [self-esteem]) and to
any other free and reasonable being."

A tip of the hat, then, to all of you/us over the years on Phil-Lit and
Lit-Ideas for the constructive betterment of the universal will so dutifully
promoted by this respect for free and reasonable beings legally using their
freedom--this smacks of Emerson's Transcendentalism, I know, but, stemming
from Kant, it should!--to plumb the sources of this "nature" we know as
human.

Richard Henninge
University of Mainz

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 4:28 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Immanuel - Following one's maxims


> > only,  by
> > always following one's maxims (loving one's neighbor as oneself, not
just
> > treating others as means to one's ends but as ends in themselves,
etc.),
> you
> > will not be plagued with the burdensome doubt that some stone  has been
> left
> > unturned since, in  other metaphors, it's out of your  hands and in
> somebody
> > else's, it could get into the wrong hands, the buck  gets passed, one
hand
> > washes the other, etc,  etc.
>
> I was under the impression that one isn't supposed to follow one's maxims.
> One is supposed to follow practical laws, that is, only those maxims that
> are universalizable.  I thought maxims, strictly speaking, were mere
> practical principles and that practical principles are subjective, "when
the
> condition is regarded by the subject as holding only for his will" (Book
I,
> I. Definition)
>
> "Within a pathologically affected will** of a rational being there can be
> found a conflict of maxims with the practical laws cognized by himself.
For
> example, someone can make it his maxim to let no insult pass unavenged and
> yet at the same time see that this is no practical law but only his
maxim -
> that, on the contrary, as being in one and the same maxim a rule for the
> will of every rational being it could not harmonize with itself" (Chapter
I,
> remark)
>
> ** pathologically - dependent upon sensibility.
>
> There are categorical imperatives and hypothetical imperatives, but maxims
> aren't even imperatives, I thought?
>
>
> Erin
> Toronto

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