[lit-ideas] Grice on Ill-Will
- From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 22:29:48 -0400
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Sent: Fri, May 7, 2010 3:10 pm
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Man marries his cat
Here's the story in German, complete with video:
http://www.bild.de/BILD/regional/dresden/aktuell/2010/05/03/dresdner-heiratet-seine-katze/paketbote-kroent-seltsame-liebe-zu-seinem-haustier.html
A free translation:
"DHL-Postfahrer Uwe Mitzscherlich (39) aus Possendorf bei Dresden lief
vor zehn Jahren beim Ostsee-Urlaub in Sassnitz eine damals etwa fünf
Jahre alte schwarz-weiße Kurzhaar-Katze zu: Cecilia (15)!"
While non-consent age in human females, 15 seems pretty well onto the
consent age range for felines.
„Es klingt verrückt, aber ich will meine Cecilia heiraten.“
This, strictly, in English will be: "I will marry my cat".
In German, however, "will", as with 98% of their words, has a stronger
meaning and means, "I want", "I desire". In English, you can say, "I
desire to marry my cat, but I won´t". In German, that´s contradictory.
"schläft seit Anbeginn in meinem Bett."
The cat "owner" keeps referring to the bed (Bett) as "his" (´meinem´)
bed. She sleeps in his bed. Once married, "it will be OUR bed."
Grice likes to quote from Abbott´s Kant. On good will. Grice notes: The
problem with Kant´s theory of good will is that it is biased. Much of
what he says about it applies to "bad" or "ill" will with much the same
ease.
Kant had said:
"Even if it should happen that owing
to the special disfavour of fortune,
or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature,
this WILL should wholly lack power
to accomplish its purpose, if in its
greatest efforts it should achieve nothing,
and there should remain only the GOOD will
(not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the
SUMMONING of all means in our power), then,
like a jewel, it would still SHINE
by its own light, as a thing which
has its whole value in itself."
Grice comments (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 67, p. 29Ñ
"no doubt mutatis mutandis something comparable could be said about the
BAD will."
Unless otherwise, stated, "I will do it" usually indicates a Good Will,
for Kant. The "Illness" of the Will has nothing to do with
"Incontinentia". "Malevolence" just happens, and it´s not really
ANTI-Ethical. Only Kantotelian ethics can justify good will over ill
will. Kantian blind ethics alone Kant and will have, as Grice notes,
"ill will" "shining like a jewel by its own light", as poor Abbott did
his best to render Kant´s cheap rhetoric there.
"I will marry my cat". Ill will?
The cat´s "will" is on the other hand, by implicature, cannot but show
that the cat is always benevolent.
J. L. Speranza
Bordighera
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