[lit-ideas] Re: Ethnic Pride, Black Truck Style

  • From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:05:26 -0500

Phil Enns wrote:


Autonomous activities would be those activities which are, to the
greatest degree possible, open and accessible to any person. . . .

It seems to me the range of autonomous activities is severely limited
and so I am not sure what to make of talk of an autonomous individual.
I've always thought that what Kant had in mind was the motivation for an activity or action, not the action itself. One can do the right thing for "heteronomous" reasons, or for "autonomous" reasons. If one tells the truth to get into heaven, that's a "heteronomous" rule. If one tells the truth to save a friend's life, that too is "heteronomous." But if one sees that telling the truth is categorically a good thing to do, one can give that rule to one's self: "Tell the truth." That is auto-nomous, giving the rule (law) to one's self. ("Nomous" = law or rule; "hetero" = other; "auto" = self.) What makes this "public" in the sense you use the word above is that it's based on the form of reason itself, which is indeed "public" to everyone. It would be impossible easily to tell from the outside whether a person was acting from a morally relevant rule, or acting out of some other motivation. Some people just habitually "tell the truth" without thinking about it at all. Others see that this is a "rule" that one should give one's self and see why; this is an "autonomous" individual. 

--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and ignorance." ------------------------------------------------- 
John Wager                john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
                                  Lisle, IL, USA


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