[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday's Revelation


Popper had I think a better view. Better in two ways - he understood that
Kant's point here centres on a metaphysical question viz. the
[disputable/questionable] autonomy of morals from 'facts'; second, he
understood that the human person is much more divided, morally speaking, as
an entity ie. we are all sociopaths to some extent [one might invoke Kant's
"the crooked timber of humanity" comment to rebut the idea that this view is
not Kantian, but I think the important thing is that Popper - though he
agreed with the Kantian idea of 'regulative principles' - did not think these
principles could ever be _established_, and was wary that any attempt to go
down this path would simply produce "hot air"]. 

Third, he saw the roots for this in an attempt to explain too much:- just as
we cannot ultimately explain the (apparent) success of modern science, so we
cannot ultimately explain the evolution of "autonomous" realms of knowledge
eg. of _knowledge_ of physical states that is not itself reducible to
physical states; or of a realm of values/morals that is not reducible to a
world of mere 'facts', but depends on what Popper defended [in an Addendum to
the OS] as an autonomy of ethics. 

Popper later placed this idea within a wider continuum of an 'evolutionary
theory of knowledge' eg. the mind emerged from the physical and the the
products of the mind emerged from the mind, but the products of the mind are
not reducible to mental activity and mental activity is not reducible to
physics. [see his 'Objective Knowledge' for example].

This is a metaphysics of _emergence_ - of genuine novelty. That is, that
there _has_ emerged _something_ new under the sun.  


> Of course, what Erin sees as sociopathic in Kant's apparent
> "self-centeredness" and his, at least superficial, "lack of moral sense"
> (two symptoms of the Antisocial Personality Disorder known as sociopathy)
> is
> indeed only one pole of the "antinomy of practical reason" that Kant seeks
> critically to *aufheben* (relieve, overcome, cancel, lift, remove, rescind,
> supercede) in this section of the Second Critique (that's the title of the
> section--"Kritische Aufhebung der Antinomie der praktischen Vernunft").
> Kant's point is that the best practical morality, the best way to obtain
> the
> greatest good through actions, is not to follow one's inclinations, even if
> those inclinations are to do good. 

I would suggest that Kant is not saying that following one's inclinations
cannot lead to the greatest "good" [ie. morality, not utilitarian "good"] but
that the "goodness"/morality here must be independent of the mere fact that
what is done reflects one's inclinations. That is, Kant is defending the
autonomy of what is _truly_ moral from the _fact_ it reflects one's
inclinations ie. Kant is defending what Popper defends, somewhat differently,
as the autonomy of ethics. 

>Even the satisfaction at having done
> something good, say, contributed to a charity, is a hollow satisfaction
> since the circumstances can be such that, say, the money would not reach
> the
> intended persons or the alms would weaken their initiative to make it on
> their own, or X, or Y or zed other unpredictable consequences in the real
> world (Kant's Sinnenwelt), 

Forget "hollow satisfaction", this is a utilitarian side-show - the point,
for Kant, is that these are "ultilitarian" considerations, not truly/purely
moral ones.

>whereas the following of one's "considered
> maxims"--while turning one's back on all inclinations, even to being
> charitable, empathetic, merciful--results indirectly in a personal
> "self-satisfaction" or "self-contentedness" independent of "inclinations
> and
> needs" and analogous to the "self-contentedness" attributable only to "the
> highest being." 

RH makes Kant sound a bit more Buddhist than he perhaps is. 

>This is not to say that following one's charitable
> inclinations will always result in the lesser good for world; 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.

What waffle! The real question is the autonomy of ethics - for Kant [AFAIK]
does not defend the idea that there could (realistically) be a proper human
morality if humans were robots devoid of "inclination"; rather he is
attacking the utilitarian notion that mere feeling or inclination etc. can
provide any proper criterion of what is _actually_ moral - for this, in
Kant's view, is a question that "transcends" mere questions of feeling or
inclination.


Donal
Perhaps waffling himself
London

 



        
        
                
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