[lit-ideas] The Immanuel - Following one's maxims
- From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:28:57 -0400
> 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.
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?
Erin
Toronto
----- Original Message -----
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 8:36 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Immanuel
>
>
> In a message dated 9/26/2004 10:54:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> Henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----
>
> Thanks for the exegesis. Interesting that Henninge should mention 'maxim'.
> In my interpretation, what Kant is proposing is, indeed, as Erin Holder's
> mother noted, the compilation of an _immanuel_ (or 'manual') -- and this
has to be
> a manual of maxims.
>
> Now, it's truly paradoxical that if one follows _desire_ (I want to do A,
I
> desire to do A, I will (to) do A), there will be, on occasion, a clash
with
> duty ("I must do A", "I ought to do A", "I should do A"). In Grice's
> interpretation, the paradox can be resolved if we understand the
>
> "I ought to do A"
>
> as a _iteration_ of "I will (to) do A". That is, obligation cashes out in
> desire (or 'interest', to use Grice's term) in that "I ought to do A" is
> rather, equivalent to:
>
> "I will to will to will to will ... [ad infinitum] do A"
>
> -- That is, in the rational will of a rational creature, her desires
(and
> interests) cannot _but_ overlap with her obligations.
>
> Kant provided a second solution to the problem:
>
> The maxim M -- in one's manual -- to do A may contradict one's sentiment
> that doing A is the right thing, or the thing one ought to do (And not
"the
> right thing one ought to do", as Geary writes -- which is redundant (cf.
"Every
> man must do his duty").
>
> For a maxim M _not_ to contradict the 'immanuel' -- now regarded as a
> _moral_ manual -- M must 'pass rational muster': it must be
_universalizable_ --
> i.e. have conceptual, applicational, and formal generality. Grice
(following
> Hare) agrees with that.
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
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