[lit-ideas] Re: The Immanuel

I actually have to get some work done today, so after this I'll have to step
away for awhile.  But...

> Well, no. It is my impression that maxims _are_ hypothetical imperatives

Well, no?  Are you sure?  I really thought there were

1) Maxims
2) Hypothetical imperatives
3) Categorical imperatives

Maxims, I thought, were practical precepts that assume purposes or
particular ends.  Imperatives, I thought were practical laws and that
practical laws do _not_ assume purposes or particular ends, that they are
followed out of adherence to the law in and of itself.  I thought that this
is how maxims and imperatives differ.  Kant says it himself in the Remark on
Definition I (at 5:20 in my books) - "Thus maxims are indeed principles but
_not imperatives_".  The difference I thought then between maxims and
hypothetical imperatives was this:

A maxim is merely a subjective desire dependent on sensibility - it can be
either physical or intellectual (I want pizza or I want truth).  A
hypothetical imperative is _not_ a maxim insofar as it is not just a
particular desire.  Yes, it is  a desire, and it is subjective, but, unlike
in a maxim, there is a subjectively conditioned _necessity_ (you, as a
general rule, should work in your youth so as not to want in old age),
albeit a necessity that cannot be "presupposed in the same degree in all
subjects" (5:21).


Erin
Toronto



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 10:35 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Immanuel


>
>
> And maxim-following.
>
> -- We are discussing Kant's idea that there is a set of maxims one may or
> may not follow. Erin's mother, and Grice, referred to this as a
'manual' -- the
> "Immanuel".
>
> In a message dated 9/28/2004 10:29:25 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> 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?
>
>
> -----
>
> Well, no. It is my impression that maxims _are_ hypothetical imperatives,
> with a constant protasis -- having to do with 'prudence'. That's why he
also
> refers to them as 'counsels of prudence', as opposed to 'technical
imperatives'
> proper, which don't have this restriction.
>
> In the end, it is a maxim which gets universalizable, and morally the
right
> thing to follow -- so I don't think there is such a contrast, in Kant,
between
>  the maxim-following behaviour and the ethically approved behaviour.
>
> Note that if these things were of such _minimal_ importance to Kant, he
> wouldn't call the _MAXims_.
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
>
>
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