[lit-ideas] Re: The Immanuel
- From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:00:51 -0400
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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