NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.

"It is a duty to preserve one's life, and moreover everyone has a direct inclination to do so. But for that reason the often anxious care which most men take of it has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of doing so has no moral import. They preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty. But if adversities and hopeless sorrow completely take away the relish for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul, is indignant rather than despondent or dejected over his fate and wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it and from neither inclination nor fear but from duty—then his maxim has a moral import."

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Idiocy.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Stupid? I dunno, it sounds a bit too self-flogging martyr-mindset to me. Like it's only God's work if it makes you bleed. That whole obsession with pain, bleeding and death. And self-repression - if I enjoy it, it must be evil? Fuck that!

The only value it might have is in incouraging work and perserverence against obstacles. But I can think of much more motivating and healthy ways to achieve that.

What would you call this statement?

There's a point but a moral action is a moral action regardless of impetus. The point is that you can only tell whether those are true morals, rather than lofty ideals, when they come under test.

So, in a sense, you cannot state what your morals are until they've been tested and so there's some truth in saying that unless they have been, they're not yet true morals.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

A good explication of duty ethics. I did recongnize the quote (not that you'd need to, given the wording, to know it was Kant), but that stuff is hazy now. I'm sympathetic to deontological ethics in general, but it's been too long to remember the greater topic in a lot of detail.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

I don't know this quote and the context it was given in, so I wouldn't know what to call this statement. From what I've gathered, it doesn't say by necessity that if you love doing something it has no moral value. The quote only addresses the act of preserving one's life, which, with respect to the human species, is supposed to be good and therefore is the moral duty of each individual human.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

It's an interesting point that is trying to be made. I think that for the most part it is bogus, but interesting nonetheless.

For example, a while back my fiancee and I did a 'random' act of kindness for someone, we did not do this for ourselves, so it was morally good, but we derived enjoyment from it... so... evil? But then, is it wrong to enjoy helping others? When I serve others, and recieve enjoyment, is it wrong to do it again, knowing that I might receive pleasure.

Additionally, the 'why' of pleasure=teh ebils is not firmly established, only that this person thinks much of those who do things out of obligation.

So, in a sense, you cannot state what your morals are until they've been tested and so there's some truth in saying that unless they have been, they're not yet true morals.
And as a result, the only way to act morally is to do something that is the opposite of what you actually want to do. Only then can we be quite certain that you didn't do it because you enjoyed it.

So if I want to be a good person, then I can't be a good person. I have to be a bad person to be good.

I'm sympathetic to deontological ethics in general, but it's been too long to remember the greater topic in a lot of detail.
The topic is quite simple to understand really. You can argue for a while about where duty comes from, but that's really just embelishing the original conclusion.

I don't know this quote and the context it was given in, so I wouldn't know what to call this statement.
Let's say that it's not a misrepresenting quote. Life here is just an example of a general rule.

Additionally, the 'why' of pleasure=teh ebils is not firmly established, only that this person thinks much of those who do things out of obligation.
It's not so much that the author thinks that pleasure is evil, it's just that pleasure has no moral worth and we can't consider you good for doing this act of kindness. The only way we'd know that you did something good is if you did it against your inclinations, if there was no chance whatsoever that you might have enjoyed it.

And as a result, the only way to act morally is to do something that is the opposite of what you actually want to do. Only then can we be quite certain that you didn't do it because you enjoyed it.

So if I want to be a good person, then I can't be a good person. I have to be a bad person to be good.


If you only have a duty to preserve what is intrinsically good, than acting according to duty makes you a good person. Circular, but... yeah. :p

The topic is quite simple to understand really. You can argue for a while about where duty comes from, but that's really just embelishing the original conclusion.

Eh. Always seemed more than a bit messy to me, but that's probably my lack of study speaking.

And as a result, the only way to act morally is to do something that is the opposite of what you actually want to do. Only then can we be quite certain that you didn't do it because you enjoyed it.

So if I want to be a good person, then I can't be a good person. I have to be a bad person to be good.

Not at all.

You do what you do, why would you have to actively test your morals to make them true?

If a test comes along, you'll see whether your morals are true or not, why do you actively have to go out and seek one?

Frankly you're damn lucky in life if you never have your morals tests, bask in your lucky life.

There's absolutely no duty whatsoever to test your morals.

There's absolutely no duty whatsoever to test your morals.
No, but it's gonna happen nonetheless, which makes it valid to ask the question. People judge each others' moral value on questions of merit and desert. People also want to feel like they're moral people, getting them into that cycle in the first place. And then there's still the question of moral value as a concept, looked at in general.

There are of course those who argue that perhaps the author didn't really want you and me to think about our morality or ethics this deeply and just do what we're told (in a broad sense), but that may be another story.

i believe in no other moral duty then to avoid, REALLY avoid, doing everything you can to avoid, including researching into how you actually might, causing suffering as much as you possibly can, causing or in any active way contributing to.

but there are, lots of things people coerce each other into persuing in the hopes of gratification, which gratify nothing.

all of us, all the time, are setting examples for all of each other, even, especially, when we're not thinking about it. and people, don't often obviously show it, but we're all affected by each other's examples too.

so again this is one of those things that's about the kind of world you want to live in. so you ask yourself how would everyone have to act for that kind of world to exist, and then, if that's what you care about, then you try to set an example of acting that way.

i mean if there's anything that comes close to being a moral duty, other then the avoidance of contributing to the causes and motivations for the causes of suffering, it would have to be that.

=^^=
.../\...

A failed attempt to show the nonsense of morality by reductio ad absurdum.

It's worse than Kant. It's Kant quoted in Rand. Neu. You seem to read Rand, and Rand like writings, and little else. Or at least cooment on this forum from that perspective.

I am a huge leftist. But I've subjected myself to Kant, Rand, O'Reilly, Kissinger, and other such authors to try to get a rounded perspective.

I am an atheist, but have read the Koran, the Bible, multiple books on Zen, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.

I give you a challenge. Read some of these authors. Jon Pilger, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, et al. Try to broaden your mind by not just reading the same stuff.

I could just read stuff by those authors and stay in my nice little echo chamber, where I agree with everything I read, but what is the point of that?

I think the point of this passage (from Kant?) Is that in order for an action to have moralworth it must be done from a sense of duty. I do not think he is incorrect in this statement. This extreme example is meant to be just that, an example, not a statement of what one should do. On a side note, I happen to like Kant.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Banal.

There's a point but a moral action is a moral action regardless of impetus.

I disagree. I agree that a "good" action is a "good" action no matter the impetus, i.e. giving a starving man food from your own table is a "good" action no matter whether you do it out of kindness/charity/duty or because you want to impress your girlfriend whom you know to go for such values. However, I believe that only the former, i.e. giving that man food out of "moral" reasons, constitutes a "moral" action, while the latter, ironically, is a selfish action.

In short, I believe that the "morality" of an action is determined by the motives, not by the outcome.

This is of course also true (for me) for the reverse case. I believe an action that stemmed from "moral" reasons yet ends in "bad" consequences to be a "moral" action, too.

P.S.: I also think that the statement "If you love doing something, then doing it has no inherent moral value" isn't thought out well enough. It neglects the fact that the very love of doing it can be a moral thing in and of itself already, thus making doing it being motivated by moral reason, thus rendering it 'moral'.

(not that you'd need to, given the wording, to know it was Kant)

Exactly, the minute I saw "maxim" a light went off in my head saying KANT!!!


Its an interesting statement. I disagree with it, but I usually disagree with Kant. None the less I enjoy him.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.

Quote:"It is a duty to preserve one's life, and moreover everyone has a direct inclination to do so. But for that reason the often anxious care which most men take of it has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of doing so has no moral import. They preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty. But if adversities and hopeless sorrow completely take away the relish for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul, is indignant rather than despondent or dejected over his fate and wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it and from neither inclination nor fear but from duty—then his maxim has a moral import."

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

I can see the point he is trying to make, but I disagree. Whilst it can be true that we can do moral thins that we do because we like them, that doesn't mean that act is meaningless. If I enjoy volunteering to, say, look after abused animals, because I like doing it, does it make it an empty act? Not neccessarily. It is possible to do something on more than one level for more than one reason. I might enjoy workign with those creatures, but I might also genuinely feel it is the right/moral thing to do, and do it in ether case.

Simiarly, don't underestimate the martyr syndrome, people doing something worthy that they dislike because they want to (or to be seen to) "suffer for their beliefs". I know several people who do this.

I can see the point he is trying to make, but I disagree. Whilst it can be true that we can do moral thins that we do because we like them, that doesn't mean that act is meaningless. If I enjoy volunteering to, say, look after abused animals, because I like doing it, does it make it an empty act? Not neccessarily.

It appears you are equating "not moral" with "empty" or "meaningless", which I'd say is an invalid equation.

You trip over your own argumentation when you bring up the 'martyr syndrome' people. If someone made a point of going to a far-away animal shelter and help the animals all day just so that they could brag about their, uh, selfishness and all the stuff they're giving up for it, their help isn't "empty" or "meaningless", either. It's, factually, the very same thing you're doing. Only it is not 'moral' because it has not been motivated by a 'moral' reason (following my understanding of 'moral reasons').

If you were to uphold your theory about measuring the 'morality' of an act by what comes of it, i.e. whether it is 'empty' and 'meaningless' or not, then you'd have to say that martyr syndrome people commit highly moral acts. From the way you worded your mentioning of them, I couldn't quite detect whether you were prepared to say so, or mentioned them for the opposite effect.

If you were to uphold your theory about measuring the 'morality' of an act by what comes of it, i.e. whether it is 'empty' and 'meaningless' or not, then you'd have to say that martyr syndrome people commit highly moral acts. From the way you worded your mentioning of them, I couldn't quite detect whether you were prepared to say so, or mentioned them for the opposite effect.

I would say that what they are doing has equal meaning, or morality, call it what you will.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Foolish...

Morality is defined by the people who live in the times, and thus sometimes Moral Statements and sekret quotes go outdated.

But in this case, I'd say the guy's wrong. Enjoying your life in a Moral way, defined by your faith, times, or way of life (so long as death or harm is not involved basically) is something that is good. To say that to actually not enjoying following a good basis for moral guidelines and not be able to enjoy your life is basically something that puzzles me.

Either the author was giving something to think about or he, himself, hated life. Then again, he could be pointing out that it is the Moral Obligation of a Sentient Person to preserve life, and therefore the responsibility to cherish the challenge of saving life rather than enjoying ones own without the challenge of saving life. Quite a puzzle to understand that is.

For example, a while back my fiancee and I did a 'random' act of kindness for someone, we did not do this for ourselves, so it was morally good, but we derived enjoyment from it... so... evil? But then, is it wrong to enjoy helping others? When I serve others, and recieve enjoyment, is it wrong to do it again, knowing that I might receive pleasure.

Additionally, the 'why' of pleasure=teh ebils is not firmly established, only that this person thinks much of those who do things out of obligation.

Very well said. It is like saying that all those persons that volunteer to help others must be evil if they get some pleasure from their service. Guess that makes those thousands of volunteer firefighters, paramedics, meals on wheels etc as selfish and evil. I spent 27 years in emergency services, and loved every minute of it. It sure as hell was not for the pay, but I truly loved the job I did.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Pseudo-intellectual, pretentious, self-flagellating, faux-martyrdom bull****.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

That's not what Kant is saying at all. He's using an example to illustrate a point, not to define it.

There's nothing wrong with loving my life. I'm not a worse person because I have no inclination to commit suicide. But I am a worse person if that's the ONLY reason I have to not commit suicide (assuming suicide is unethical): if I am so concerned with my inclinations that I am not concerned for right and wrong.

The person who always mindlessly does what he most desires will preserve his own life when he desires, and destroy it when he desires. His actions in neither case will have any worth, because he lets desire, not reason, determine his will: he pays attention only to what he wants, not to what is right.

In his example, Kant is trying to get at this idea in a concrete sense: his point is not that it is better to hate life, but that it is better to obey right even when we are inclined to do otherwise.

We are better off, of course, if we are rarely inclined to do otherwise... and indeed, Kant argues that we have moral duties to guarantee this, to make ourselves content and not desperate, so that we can do what is right without conflicting inclinations. But that may not always be the case. And when it is not, our obligation remains the same: we must do what is right even if we hate doing it.

The only way we'd know that you did something good is if you did it against your inclinations, if there was no chance whatsoever that you might have enjoyed it.

That's the only way we'd KNOW, yes. But who cares whether or not we KNOW?

Kant actually suggests that we can never know, in our case or in the case of others. But so what?

It is like saying that all those persons that volunteer to help others must be evil if they get some pleasure from their service.

No, it isn't. That's an absurd misinterpretation.

But all those volunteers would be evil if they would just as soon commit genocide to get that pleasure--if the only thing that matters to them is pleasure, not right.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

This sounds like almost a Kantian approach to ethics. If you insist on believing that the only way to be moral is to follow duty for duties sake, I don't agree that enjoying life prevents you from acting from duty alone. Merely, when you don't enjoy life but still care for your life it demonstrates more clearly that you are in fact following your duty for duties sake, yet you cannot tell with someone who is enjoying their life.

Pseudo-intellectual, pretentious, self-flagellating, faux-martyrdom bull****.

Kant is a Pseudo-intellectual!? :headbang:

The Kant-hatin' needs to stop. He was an intellectual giant, and changed the course of philosophy. Agree with him or not, you won't score any points calling him an idiot or a bullshitter.

It's worse than Kant. It's Kant quoted in Rand.
It's Kant written in Kant with no commentary or judgement delivered alongside it. If someone else quoted it as well to make a point, even if I happen to agree with it, that's hardly a valid reason not to make a judgement on the little passage of text yourself.

Neu. You seem to read Rand, and Rand like writings, and little else. Or at least cooment on this forum from that perspective.
Well, most people here don't change the perspective they're writing from frequently. I basically have, once, a long time ago before most of the people here now were around. If you want, go and search the posts of the original "Leonstein" profile.

So yeah, it's not like this is the only perspective I've ever had or that I wasn't exposed to other viewpoints. It's just that as I learn more, the picture just gets clearer and clearer that Rand basically expressed what I thought before I knew she even existed. The reason I stopped being a Maoist was that I didn't actually want to kill people or be killed. The reason that I stopped being a Democratic Socialist was the realisation that it, as a system, would have required my self-immolation. It wasn't until months later that I first held a copy of Atlas Shrugged in my hands.

I give you a challenge. Read some of these authors. Jon Pilger, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, et al. Try to broaden your mind by not just reading the same stuff.
Actually, I rarely get the chance to read anything beyond my textbooks and news media. If I had the spare time, I'd start with people like Kant, if only to make sure he really was that evil. It seems hard to believe.

As for Pilger, I've seen a few of his films. It's the factual inaccuracies that make me angry, not his point of view.

That's not what Kant is saying at all. He's using an example to illustrate a point, not to define it.
Do you, or do you not think that Kant would agree with the paragraph that was quoted?

That's all that matters. A good person suffers and their goodness is expressed through their pain because it is the only guarantee that they're not secretly being non-good. I'm using it as much as an illustration as he is.

And it rather seems that a moral system that has to be illustrated with that sort of thing has a problem.

His actions in neither case will have any worth, because he lets desire, not reason, determine his will: he pays attention only to what he wants, not to what is right.
And yet, amazingly, Kant despite denying knowledge comes up with a right that is independent of what we want.

We are better off, of course, if we are rarely inclined to do otherwise... and indeed, Kant argues that we have moral duties to guarantee this, to make ourselves content and not desperate, so that we can do what is right without conflicting inclinations.
We have a moral duty to make sure we enjoy following rules? I suppose you wouldn't call him particularly creative, but what would be interesting to see is how the hell he rationalised this one.

Kant actually suggests that we can never know, in our case or in the case of others. But so what?
So we stay blind for all eternity. Really, we don't know whether the actual duties he may have come up with are moral either, yet he seems to suggest that it's following the rules that makes someone a good person. It does seem like something of a contradiction to say that we can neither perceive nor reason anything about the truth and then proceed to build a system of duties and tell people that to be good they have to follow them. Unless of course we have some other means of perceiving truth...a supernatural one, perhaps. "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.", and all that.

The Kant-hatin' needs to stop. He was an intellectual giant, and changed the course of philosophy. Agree with him or not, you won't score any points calling him an idiot or a bullshitter.
I don't think I led anyone down a wrong path with the OP, so the responses you get from people who don't know who wrote it is quite genuine, I'd think.

Which may or may not tell you something about what happens when you put a bad idea into complex terms and it hits the shops and classrooms of the world as a philosophy book.

Kant is a Pseudo-intellectual!? :headbang:

Didn't even know who wrote it. Don't care either.

This philosophy just sounds stupid. How does suddenly enjoying doing good make it amoral.

Explain it to me. Seriously. I may get it.

Do you, or do you not think that Kant would agree with the paragraph that was quoted?

He wrote it, so....

That's all that matters. A good person suffers and their goodness is expressed through their pain because it is the only guarantee that they're not secretly being non-good. I'm using it as much as an illustration as he is.

What are you talking about? That's just not what he says.

"They preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty."

"and yet preserves his life without loving it and from neither inclination nor fear but from duty"

It's not suffering that expresses moral worth, it's acting from duty. And we can act from duty even if we do not suffer, as long as we allow for consideration of duty, of "right"--as long as we do not do what makes us happy just because it makes us happy, but always with an eye also to whether or not it is right.

And it rather seems that a moral system that has to be illustrated with that sort of thing has a problem.

No, it doesn't. Kant's point is actually rather trivial. People just don't like the way he puts it.

And yet, amazingly, Kant despite denying knowledge comes up with a right that is independent of what we want.

He doesn't deny knowledge as such; he denies whether we can know with perfection whether we have acted from duty or from inclination.

We have a moral duty to make sure we enjoy following rules? I suppose you wouldn't call him particularly creative, but what would be interesting to see is how the hell he rationalised this one.

That's easy. The point is to do what is right. If we can make it easier for us to do what is right, all the better.

So we stay blind for all eternity. Really, we don't know whether the actual duties he may have come up with are moral either,

He presents a very strong argument.

yet he seems to suggest that it's following the rules that makes someone a good person.

Yes, that would follow from those rules being moral.

It does seem like something of a contradiction to say that we can neither perceive nor reason anything about the truth and then proceed to build a system of duties and tell people that to be good they have to follow them.

Of course it is. Thankfully, Kant doesn't do anything of the sort. What you are referring to is the fact that we can't access "things in themselves" through our perceptions, but Kant's moral argument doesn't depend on a "form of the Good", so this doesn't matter. It stems instead from an examination of what it means for a free will to be determined by reason.

Unless of course we have some other means of perceiving truth...a supernatural one, perhaps. "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.", and all that.

Have you actually read Kant? Kant is very explicit that faith is not a source of knowledge at all--that we can never know that we have free will, or that the soul is immortal, or that God exists, even though we might have reasons to have faith.

How does suddenly enjoying doing good make it amoral.

Explain it to me.

Easy. It doesn't.

But if all you're concerned with is enjoyment, if you don't care about "right", then even if your actions happen to coincide with morality, they have no moral worth. If you're as willing to murder as to help others as long as both give you equal quantities of enjoyment, you're not moral just because, at the moment, helping others happens to be more enjoyable.

Consider: if I think hard about a topic and come up with an answer that I really hate, but defend it anyway as the necessary logical conclusion, I would be justifiably called an honest person. But if I didn't think about it at all and just believed the answer I liked best, that wouldn't be an honest thinking process at all... even if the answer happened to be right.

Same idea here.

Easy. It doesn't.

But if all you're concerned with is enjoyment, if you don't care about "right", then even if your actions happen to coincide with morality, they have no moral worth. If you're as willing to murder as to help others as long as both give you equal quantities of enjoyment, you're not moral just because, at the moment, helping others happens to be more enjoyable.

Consider: if I think hard about a topic and come up with an answer that I really hate, but defend it anyway as the necessary logical conclusion, I would be justifiably called an honest person. But if I didn't think about it at all and just believed the answer I liked best, that wouldn't be an honest thinking process at all... even if the answer happened to be right.

Same idea here.

So it is to say that one can enjoy helping others, so long as they understand the difference between right and wrong?

Isn't that a given?

I mean most people aren't omnicidal maniacs who enjoy causing pain (at least most people I've met).

At least this concept makes more sense to me now, even if it is presented in a needlessly complex fashion (maybe I'm expecting too much from most people).

Thankee for your help.

So it is to say that one can enjoy helping others, so long as they understand the difference between right and wrong?

Not just "understand." Are concerned for in practice.

Isn't that a given?

I tend to think it is, but a lot of people have trouble with it.

Anyway, obvious or not, it's an important piece of Kant's argument, because he wants us to understand what it means for a will to act autonomously--without determination by external inclination.

I mean most people aren't omnicidal maniacs who enjoy causing pain (at least most people I've met).

The issue isn't whether they "enjoy causing pain." The issue is whether they recognize the moral worth of not causing pain unjustifiably.

Not just "understand." Are concerned for in practice.

I'd say that concern for the wellbeing of their fellow man is a cardinal qualification for a moral person.

I tend to think it is, but a lot of people have trouble with it.

Anyway, obvious or not, it's an important piece of Kant's argument, because he wants us to understand what it means for a will to act autonomously--without determination by external inclination.

Whether Kant likes it or not there are plenty of external factors in one's will. A child is taught by their parent from an early age to not hurt other beings. A person vows to become an EMT after witnessing a tragic accident. Granted, we make those decisions, but there are always external drives.

The issue isn't whether they "enjoy causing pain." The issue is whether they recognize the moral worth of not causing pain unjustifiably.

Agreed. Still seems obvious to me.

That's the kind of vibe at least that I get from most of the philosophy I hear of: simple, common-sense concepts decompressed into abstract, seemingly extraordinary forms.

Whether Kant likes it or not there are plenty of external factors in one's will.

Kant's perfectly aware of that. But there's a difference because doing what I like because I recognize independently that it's morally permissible, and doing what I like just because I like it.

In the first case, I am acting autonomously, because I am concerned for the independent reason.

That's the kind of vibe at least that I get from most of the philosophy I hear of: simple, common-sense concepts decompressed into abstract, seemingly extraordinary forms.

Well, in the first part of the Groundwork, Kant is concerned with exactly that: using common-sense concepts of morality to derive his basic principle of morality.

Kant's perfectly aware of that. But there's a difference because doing what I like because I recognize independently that it's morally permissible, and doing what I like just because I like it.

In the first case, I am acting autonomously, because I am concerned for the independent reason.

Very well. Still sounds like a needlessly complex clusterfuck to me, but this is why I mostly avoid philosophy...unless I'm trying to deconstruct it...which I cannot in good conscience do in this case.

I've got a bit of studying I need to do on the peripheral nervous system, so I'm off.

Thank you for your time, Soheran. :)

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.



Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Soheran has gone over this fairly well, but to be clear, I would call the original statement correct, and your statement a misconstrual of what he means.

The point that Kant makes here as an example is that doing the right thing is the paramount concern of the moral person, but it is not immediately clear how one knows what is the moral action in any given circumstance. Earlier in the Groundwork, he stresses that the only ultimately and truly good thing is a good will, but many people confuse this with doing what feels good to them. It's at this point that he uses three examples, one of which is this one, to make plain that we cannot rely on good feelings to determine whether or not our will is good, because what makes us feel good is fickle, changes all the time, and it too often means not taking the hard road to do the right thing because "That's too hard".

That is just the point he makes here, and no more. It isn't that if you're enjoying yourself, it's evil, so do things that you hate to be moral. It's that were we to have a good will, we would still do the right thing even if we hated doing it; feelings have nothing to do with moral reasoning, pace Adam Smith and David Hume.

It's not suffering that expresses moral worth, it's acting from duty. And we can act from duty even if we do not suffer, as long as we allow for consideration of duty, of "right"--as long as we do not do what makes us happy just because it makes us happy, but always with an eye also to whether or not it is right.
But we can't make that decision impartially, because out perspective might cloud our judgement. There is only one way to make sure.

No, it doesn't. Kant's point is actually rather trivial. People just don't like the way he puts it.
I don't think there is a way to put it that wouldn't be as repulsive. Kant at least had the honesty to say it, lots of people before them weren't as open about it.

The question is why he bothered. I mean, he had to invent things like categories (not that anyone understands them...knowledge that one doesn't have to go through the process of knowing seems to come as close as I get) just to create exceptions to what he was actually saying so he could use them to come up with any moral rule afterall. The far more consistent approach would have been to stop after realising that he can never know a thing and leave it at that. But I suppose that wouldn't have filled a book.

He doesn't deny knowledge as such; he denies whether we can know with perfection whether we have acted from duty or from inclination.
So you do understand what point I'm trying to make here. If we hate doing the right thing, the chances are much greater that we're acting from duty rather than inclination and therefore much greater that we're a good person. It's the suffering caused by us doing something we hate that is the clearest sign we have of our being of moral import, as it were.

Oh, and obviously he does deny knowledge because he insists on divorcing us from reality. If time, space and any other thing suddenly only exists because we make it up, for want of a better term (and god knows he wasn't the one to come up with one), then nothing we know is actually true outside our minds. And the way we know it is because we think it exists, the thought falsifying the thing that is being thought about - again one of those contradictions that can only leave us as pointless wrecks.

That's easy. The point is to do what is right. If we can make it easier for us to do what is right, all the better.
Except that we then no longer tell whether we're doing it because it's right. We're increasing the chances that we aren't, thereby increasing the chances that we're not good people.

He presents a very strong argument.
It only looks so good because he seeks to deny the fact that I am making the decision. He can only justify imagining a world in which everyone or anyone else was making the same choice as me by in effect denying my own ability to make it correctly and therefore making it irrelevant who we're talking about.


Have you actually read Kant? Kant is very explicit that faith is not a source of knowledge at all--that we can never know that we have free will, or that the soul is immortal, or that God exists, even though we might have reasons to have faith.
Granted, faith is not the word to look for. The whole idea of knowledge being made impossible through the process of acquiring it implies that knowledge would only be possible if it had no cause. Religion is a sort of cause, it would still require people to realise that they exist and that they can't deny that or any implications of it. If knowledge is a good thing (and it has to be, because Kant certainly leaves room for a true morality, he just denies that we can know it), then the only perfect being is one that doesn't exist.

Luckily he also says that suicide is a bad thing, which is a happy coincidence indeed.

Anyway, obvious or not, it's an important piece of Kant's argument, because he wants us to understand what it means for a will to act autonomously--without determination by external inclination.
Precisely. One is only free by being freed from the influences of the world. Life gets in the way of that, if you think about it. He can hope for and imagine beings that somehow manage to exist without taking part in life on earth, but fact of the matter is that no actual person will be able to take anything out of that. And that, much like first few responses in the thread, is a natural reaction to Kantian ethics.

Kant's perfectly aware of that. But there's a difference because doing what I like because I recognize independently that it's morally permissible, and doing what I like just because I like it.
But how do you? No such thing as a category actually exists. Even if it did, now that would be a thing that it would really be impossible to know. And without categories there is no categorical imperative and there is no duty. No one can be honestly and truly convinced by Kant's argument because no one has only categories to rely upon and can actually say "yes, this is self-evidently true and no worldly influences on me have affected my judgement thereof".

There is nothing categorical about Kant's imperatives. They're just one more hypothetical in a long line of them. And you're not gonna find anyone on the planet who believes them against their own will either, so I'm gonna put it out there that there is no way to prove that they are anything other than something that makes those people happy because they think they get moral value out of following or believing them.

Very well. Still sounds like a needlessly complex clusterfuck to me, but this is why I mostly avoid philosophy...unless I'm trying to deconstruct it...which I cannot in good conscience do in this case.
If there is a reason people avoid philosophy, Kant is it. People don't read him and stay sane for prolonged periods of time. It helps making them susceptible to the content. ;)

Though in fairness, I've only ever tried English translations and never managed to get stuck in. Maybe he made more sense in German and the translators are all idiots.

Earlier in the Groundwork, he stresses that the only ultimately and truly good thing is a good will, but many people confuse this with doing what feels good to them.
And how does he do that? Hell, what does "good" mean in this case? I thought he wanted to reverse the whole "good => right" relationship.

It isn't that if you're enjoying yourself, it's evil, so do things that you hate to be moral. It's that were we to have a good will, we would still do the right thing even if we hated doing it; feelings have nothing to do with moral reasoning, pace Adam Smith and David Hume.
I never implied that he said that it made you evil. I said that it implies no moral value unless it's done against our feelings. So the only proof of good will is doing something we hate. Of course, if you're right and he also said that the only truly good thing is a good will, then as a result the only proof of good is suffering, and a lack of suffering drastically reduces the chances that whatever we're witnessing is good.

Of course, if everyone realised that and followed this code...

So you do understand what point I'm trying to make here. If we hate doing the right thing, the chances are much greater that we're acting from duty rather than inclination and therefore much greater that we're a good person. It's the suffering caused by us doing something we hate that is the clearest sign we have of our being of moral import, as it were.

This is the part I don't get. How are you a better person if you hate doing the right thing than if you like it (assuming, of course that you actually do the right thing)?

This is the part I don't get. How are you a better person if you hate doing the right thing than if you like it (assuming, of course that you actually do the right thing)?

You misunderstood it a little bit, for kant it's important to do things because it's your duty and not because you do it for a certain consequence. So doing good because you like it (feeling good about it is the consequence you are doing an action for) is inferior to doing good because it's your duty (without thinking of the consequences). I don't think Kant would have problems with liking to do your duty but he would have problems with doing things because you like them, whether they are your duty or not.

This is because you can only act free if you don't have an objective or consequence in mind (if I want C i must do A), if you do you are part of nature which means you're subjected to the laws of causality etc. Only if you act according to a categorical imperative (which don't have a consequence in them like 'don't steal' or something (opposed to 'don't steal if you don't want to be imprisoned)).

Well that's what I think it is, it's really hard to understand and I might be very wrong. Maybe check out wiki, they have an extensive article about his philosophy I think.

Anyway, I don't really agree with Kant (well at least not with what I think kantianism is).

But we can't make that decision impartially, because out perspective might cloud our judgement.

Yes, it might. That's always true. It's true of any judgment we might make, including non-moral matters like whether or not the minimum wage increases unemployment.

Does that mean it is impossible to try? Does that mean we cannot have some understanding, even uncertain understanding, of how fair we are being in our judgment? Of course not.

There is only one way to make sure.

There is no way to make sure.

I don't think there is a way to put it that wouldn't be as repulsive.

Fine, then, be repulsed. But if you're rational, you won't let that stop you. Truth can be repulsive.

The question is why he bothered. I mean, he had to invent things like categories (not that anyone understands them...knowledge that one doesn't have to go through the process of knowing seems to come as close as I get) just to create exceptions to what he was actually saying

If you're talking about Kant's epistemology--which, while tied in some ways to his ethics, is not really required to understand his argument--you've gotten him deeply wrong.

Kant isn't talking about "knowledge that one doesn't have to go through the process of knowing." He's talking about knowledge that's bound up with the process of knowing: the form of experience that is (for us) a prerequisite for experiencing anything at all.

Ultimately Kant is not really interested in finding a way around his conclusions regarding things-in-themselves--he might have liked to solve that problem, especially with respect to free will, but he knows he can't. He's much more interested in justifying necessary truths when it comes to things as they appear to us--the world we experience. He wants to explain why we can, say, trust that mathematics actually works in the real world... even when we can't ever trust that the next cat we see will necessarily be black, however many black cats we have seen.

But this is not really relevant.

so he could use them to come up with any moral rule afterall. The far more consistent approach would have been to stop after realising that he can never know a thing and leave it at that.

Yes, that's right, we can never know "things in themselves." But so what? Most of modern science operates on this assumption in one form or another. What about it?

Again, this would only weaken his moral theory if Kant asserted that there was a "thing in itself" that was moral truth. But he doesn't. His moral theory depends on no such thing; it's not "objective" in that sense. It depends on the concept of an autonomous will determined by reason.

So you do understand what point I'm trying to make here. If we hate doing the right thing, the chances are much greater that we're acting from duty rather than inclination and therefore much greater that we're a good person. It's the suffering caused by us doing something we hate that is the clearest sign we have of our being of moral import, as it were.

Yeah, so?

Let me use the example I earlier put to Bolol: imagine a person who is thinking about something, and comes to a conclusion she really doesn't like. But she's intellectually honest enough that she's willing to accept it, because she knows that what she likes doesn't determine truth.

Can we be more sure of her intellectual honesty than of a person who thinks about a subject and comes to a conclusion he loves? Of course. But does that mean we should try to hate every conclusion we come to? Does that mean we should try to create obstacles in the way of intellectual honesty, so that we can overcome them? Of course not, especially not when we cannot be sure that we will overcome them (and if we are, why bother?)

To do so is really vanity. It is to put appearing right over being right. An act done from such a motive is not done "from duty" at all. Kant's moral theory not only doesn't encourage this kind of behavior, but in fact prohibits it.

Oh, and obviously he does deny knowledge because he insists on divorcing us from reality.

No. We are already (somewhat) divorced from reality. Kant is trying to deal with this.

If time, space and any other thing suddenly only exists because we make it up, for want of a better term (and god knows he wasn't the one to come up with one),

Okay, first, what's this about "any other thing"? Kant says there are certain necessary features of experience that are not dependent on the external world, but that doesn't mean that no features are.

Second, of course he wasn't the one to come up with that. This is why it is important to view Kant in the context of what he is trying to show. He isn't advancing a skeptical argument, he's referencing a skeptical argument that already exists and replying to it.

then nothing we know is actually true outside our minds.

No. We just can't know whether or not it is.

And the way we know it is because we think it exists, the thought falsifying the thing that is being thought about - again one of those contradictions that can only leave us as pointless wrecks.

Appeal to consequences. In any case, no, there's no reason this realization should leave us a pointless wreck. The mere fact that we can't be sure of the truth of the world we perceive doesn't mean much about, well, anything, except in limited contexts like the antinomies. There's nothing wrong with provisionally accepting the world of appearances as real. We don't really have any other option.

Except that we then no longer tell whether we're doing it because it's right.

So? The point is not to tell, but to do what is right.

We're increasing the chances that we aren't, thereby increasing the chances that we're not good people.

No, we're not. You're still missing Kant's point, which is general, not specific to the cases where we are inclined to do the right thing. Kant wants us to develop our adherence to right as such. He wants us to avoid moral arbitrariness, to determine our will by reason and not by desire. He wants us to avoid trusting in the inclinations we happen to have, to realize that, logically, "It feels good" doesn't mean "I should do it."

If we have achieved a certain level of regard for right, it doesn't matter whether we have it in the context of happiness or the context of suffering--it's of equal moral worth. By making ourselves suffer more, we don't develop our regard for right at all... we just make it harder for us to express it.

And, of course, if after realizing what our moral duty is, if we develop the inclinations that help us fulfill it, those inclinations are not morally arbitrary at all, because they have been planted intentionally to guide us towards right. The connection is no longer incidental.

It only looks so good because he seeks to deny the fact that I am making the decision.

What are you talking about? Kant's whole point is that it is you making the decision... not anything else. That's what it means to be free.

You're the one who has such massive problems with determinism. Well, Kant would be the first to agree with you. His approach to morality is an attempt to conceive a positive understanding of a will not subject to causal determination, a will that escapes determinism.

He can only justify imagining a world in which everyone or anyone else was making the same choice as me by in effect denying my own ability to make it correctly and therefore making it irrelevant who we're talking about.

Again, what are you talking about? He doesn't deny your ability to make it correctly, and even if he did it certainly wouldn't lead to the universalization formula. I could explain to you how he actually derives the universalization formula, but it's best, I think, if we clear up some of the rest of this first. It is related, just not in the way you seem to think it is.

The whole idea of knowledge being made impossible through the process of acquiring it implies that knowledge would only be possible if it had no cause.

This is clearly an absurdity, because uncaused beliefs would be arbitrary with respect to the outside world. In any case, when Kant talks about the impossibility of knowing things-in-themselves, he's not talking about all knowledge at all. He's talking about knowledge of the external world, and even then only with respect to its "true" nature. We can learn plenty about how the world of appearances works; that's Kant's whole point.

Religion is a sort of cause, it would still require people to realise that they exist and that they can't deny that or any implications of it.

Kant, of course, actually thinks that we can be sure of our existence in a certain sense... just not of much else about us.

If knowledge is a good thing (and it has to be, because Kant certainly leaves room for a true morality, he just denies that we can know it),

No, he doesn't. Morality is not something we need to perceive the way we perceive things in the external world.

Precisely. One is only free by being freed from the influences of the world. Life gets in the way of that, if you think about it. He can hope for and imagine beings that somehow manage to exist without taking part in life on earth, but fact of the matter is that no actual person will be able to take anything out of that.

You're making the same mistakes you have in the past with Marx. You're interpreting Kant through the lenses of his (worse) philosophical critics, and in doing so you're getting him decidedly wrong.

Should we participate in the world? Definitely. Should we concern ourselves with worldly things? Absolutely. Kant's point is not that such things have no proper place. His point is that, in CONSIDERING their proper place, we must abstract from our attachment to them.

Again, this point, when it comes down to it, is trivial. You recognize it already--for instance, when you've criticized leftist radicals for putting their inclination to rebelliousness above rational argument. Is there a place for protest? Of course there is. But to let your desire to protest determine that place, instead of your rational analysis of how the world actually works (or of the nature of right and wrong), is to put the cart before the horse. It is irrational. It is wrong.

That is Kant's point.

But how do you? No such thing as a category actually exists. Even if it did, now that would be a thing that it would really be impossible to know.

I'd suggest that you actually examine his argument carefully and fairly before making such bold claims about it.

And without categories there is no categorical imperative and there is no duty.

You don't really need most of Kant's metaphysics to understand the argument for the categorical imperative. Just the Kantian idea of free will, really.

No one can be honestly and truly convinced by Kant's argument because no one has only categories to rely upon

But we don't derive morality from experience, so that's irrelevant.

and can actually say "yes, this is self-evidently true and no worldly influences on me have affected my judgement thereof".

No, we can never say this with certainty. So what? We can make the attempt.

Do you really think intellectual honesty is impossible? Do we only believe things because we like them? If that were the case, why do you bother arguing philosophy? Why do you bother studying economics, for that matter?

To argue against the grounding of the categorical imperative is, ultimately, to argue against the grounding of reason as such.

There is nothing categorical about Kant's imperatives. They're just one more hypothetical in a long line of them.

Bullshit. People claim this because they don't understand Kant's arguments for them, usually because they're just taught the formulations independent of the justification. And without the justification, of course it looks like they're no different from anything else.

But Kant actually makes far and away the best argument for absolute morality there is.

And you're not gonna find anyone on the planet who believes them against their own will either,

That's right. You don't believe them against your will, you accept them willfully because you let your will be determined by reason.

This is the part I don't get. How are you a better person if you hate doing the right thing than if you like it (assuming, of course that you actually do the right thing)?

You're not. See my reply to Bolol.

This is because you can only act free if you don't have an objective or consequence in mind (if I want C i must do A), if you do you are part of nature which means you're subjected to the laws of causality etc. Only if you act according to a categorical imperative (which don't have a consequence in them like 'don't steal' or something (opposed to 'don't steal if you don't want to be imprisoned)).

Sort of, but not really. There's nothing wrong with obeying hypothetical imperatives. Indeed, they're imperatives: obedience to them is commanded by reason. And obedience to categorical imperatives sometimes does mandate that we pursue certain ends: we have positive duties to promote the happiness of others, for instance.

Kant's point is simply that considerations of RIGHT are not dependent on empirical circumstance (to borrow Hume's formulation, "is" does not imply "ought"), and a person's desire to secure a certain consequence is an empirical circumstance. In and of itself, this doesn't destroy consequentialist ethics at all (it takes the ends-in-themselves formulation to do that)--Kant really just wants to point out that instrumental reason ("do x means for y end") is not the end-all and be-all of practical reason, that it needs an independent grounding that can get us further than mere irrational adherence to inclination, mere "heteronomy".

You misunderstood it a little bit, for kant it's important to do things because it's your duty and not because you do it for a certain consequence. So doing good because you like it (feeling good about it is the consequence you are doing an action for) is inferior to doing good because it's your duty (without thinking of the consequences). I don't think Kant would have problems with liking to do your duty but he would have problems with doing things because you like them, whether they are your duty or not.

Don't really say any difference between your and Neu Leo's explanation; still think its asinine.

Don't really say any difference between your and Neu Leo's explanation; still think its asinine.

I always do what makes me happy.

If it makes me happy to give food to the needy, I will do it.

If it makes me happy to detonate nuclear bombs in densely-populated cities, I will do it.

Isn't there something morally wrong with me?

I agree 100%. People deserve the most praise for doing something they dislike. Like firefighters, who walking into a burning building. I'm assuming they're not suicidal, so they must have developed an unusually strong morals sense.

Sometimes people get praise for doing something they would normally do anyway. Like when someone said a cancer patient is brave, just because they sit there doing nothing while having cancer. Why is that brave? Because they aren't stabbing themselves?

I always do what makes me happy.

If it makes me happy to give food to the needy, I will do it.

If it makes me happy to detonate nuclear bombs in densely-populated cities, I will do it.

Isn't there something morally wrong with me?

I'd say yes.
What does that have to do with Isid's and Neu Leo's explanation, which is what I was responding to?

If you're setting up to try and give me a better explanation, then fire away...

I agree 100%. People deserve the most praise for doing something they dislike. Like firefighters, who walking into a burning building. I'm assuming they're not suicidal, so they must have developed an unusually strong morals sense.
Or they realize that its just part of their job...
Sometimes people get praise for doing something they would normally do anyway. Like when someone said a cancer patient is brave, just because they sit there doing nothing while having cancer. Why is that brave? Because they aren't stabbing themselves?
Do you know anyone who is dieing of cancer?

I'd say yes.

Then you agree with Kant.

If you're setting up to try and give me a better explanation, then fire away...

To quote myself:

"If all you're concerned with is enjoyment, if you don't care about "right", then even if your actions happen to coincide with morality, they have no moral worth. If you're as willing to murder as to help others as long as both give you equal quantities of enjoyment, you're not moral just because, at the moment, helping others happens to be more enjoyable.

Consider: if I think hard about a topic and come up with an answer that I really hate, but defend it anyway as the necessary logical conclusion, I would be justifiably called an honest person. But if I didn't think about it at all and just believed the answer I liked best, that wouldn't be an honest thinking process at all... even if the answer happened to be right.

Same idea here."

In no sense does Kant mean that it is bad to enjoy doing right things. He means it is bad to seek enjoyment so much that you neglect consideration of right and wrong--that you forget that just because you enjoy something doesn't mean it's morally okay (and just because you hate something doesn't mean it isn't morally obligatory.)

Then you agree with Kant.



To quote myself:

"If all you're concerned with is enjoyment, if you don't care about "right", then even if your actions happen to coincide with morality, they have no moral worth. If you're as willing to murder as to help others as long as both give you equal quantities of enjoyment, you're not moral just because, at the moment, helping others happens to be more enjoyable.

Consider: if I think hard about a topic and come up with an answer that I really hate, but defend it anyway as the necessary logical conclusion, I would be justifiably called an honest person. But if I didn't think about it at all and just believed the answer I liked best, that wouldn't be an honest thinking process at all... even if the answer happened to be right.

Same idea here."

OK, that makes sense, Isid's and Neu Leo's explanations didn't.

And how does he do that? Hell, what does "good" mean in this case? I thought he wanted to reverse the whole "good => right" relationship.

It usually means "imbued with intrinsic moral worth". And really, can you think of a time when desiring to do good is ever in itself a bad thing? Even if there are terrible consequences as a result of that intent, isn't meaning well still ameliorating some of the badness of the situation? By contrast, isn't accidentally doing the right thing while trying to accomplish evil somehow sullying the goodness of the act? If so, then you're basically seeing the same thing that Kant sees: it's the intent of the act, and the volition to do a thing of intrinsic moral worth specifically, that makes an act a good act.


I never implied that he said that it made you evil. I said that it implies no moral value unless it's done against our feelings. So the only proof of good will is doing something we hate. Of course, if you're right and he also said that the only truly good thing is a good will, then as a result the only proof of good is suffering, and a lack of suffering drastically reduces the chances that whatever we're witnessing is good.

Of course, if everyone realised that and followed this code...

I think you misunderstand what I mean by "truly". You seem to think it means "solely" or "solitary" or "taken in isolation"; I actually meant more along the lines of "without qualification" or "of which a logical counterexample cannot be found". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Maybe a different way to approach this is by a set of examples. Let's suppose that my exclusive motivation is to feel pleasure. And let's say that I would feel a great deal of pleasure if I had an ice cream cone right now. Let's suppose further that there were an icecream truck across the street from me, and between myself and the icecream truck a kid was playing jacks in the street. Now, let's suppose that I push this kid out of the way in my rush to get to the ice cream truck, and pushing this kid out of the way just happens to let him avoid a runaway cement mixer; I get hit and killed instead.

Now taking for granted that this is a highly implausible situation, we can ask ourselves a reasonable question: Did my action have any moral worth? At one level, sure. I did an action that at face value is a highly noble and heroic one: I traded my life for the life of another. But it's pretty apparent fairly quickly that this nobility and heroism is only incidental to what happened: I was really just trying to stuff my face with ice cream and an honorable and morally worthy action just happened to occur as a consequence. In this case, if you look at what Kant was saying, you'll note that what I did was in accord with goodness, but no one will call it an act out of or for the sake of goodness.

Now, let's suppose a different set of circumstances presents itself: suppose I am the kind of person who takes joy in doing the right thing, but when joy and "the right thing" conflict, I always do the right thing. Let's say further that the kid in the street in the above example is still in the street is my kid brother whom I love with all my heart, and finally let us suppose that I notice the runaway cement mixer heading for my brother, and I rush at him and hurl the both of us out of the way just in time. In this case, it's much easier to say that the act had moral worth, and at a much deeper level than in the earlier example. After all, willing the right thing is of intrinsic moral worth, and the action had good consequences. Even more, it's clearly likely that by doing something heroic and saving my little brother, I am likely enjoying the results of my actions.

But nevertheless, one could say it isn't readily apparent just how good the action was, because it isn't immediately apparent whether I acted out of a desire to do the right thing, or acted out of love. The distinction may not seem important in this case, but it is: loving your brother can result in actions that are morally justifiable, as the above case is, and cases that are morally indefensible. Love, then, possesses an inconstant relation to goodness. But note how I constructed the phrasing: on balance, I tend to do the right thing even if I don't like it. By noting this, it becomes clearer than in the earlier example was in fact that I wasn't just doing something slightly different from the above example (substituting the emotion of love for the desire to satiate my hunger) but was in fact acting out of a desire to do good, not simply acting in accord with what is right.

The point Kant makes here is little more than the same example, but shown as doing something you don't want to do to highlight what really moves these examples, namely, the good will. While it's true that doing what makes you feel good and what is right can coincide, it's often damned near impossible in practice to seperate what motivated someone to do something: the love or the good will. This example of refraining from killing yourself even if you hate life then operates as a kind of counterfactual analysis that allows me to say to myself, and me to say of someone else: I'm at least pretty sure that he did a morally praiseworthy act, because he did it for the right reasons.

I have a quote here, some of you may know it, most probably won't. I wonder what people think of it, ideally without running of and researching where it came from and then making a decisions based on that.

"It is a duty to preserve one's life, and moreover everyone has a direct inclination to do so. But for that reason the often anxious care which most men take of it has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of doing so has no moral import. They preserve their lives according to duty, but not from duty. But if adversities and hopeless sorrow completely take away the relish for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul, is indignant rather than despondent or dejected over his fate and wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it and from neither inclination nor fear but from duty—then his maxim has a moral import."

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?From the other posters here I can sort of see the context of Kant's statement here. I am just curious: why is such a thing a duty? Must one understand it as a duty to preserve someone's life, or lessen someone's suffering, or not tell lies, etc.? I'm sure a Kantian would say: yes, of course; but few people are strictly Kantian.

The categorical imperative here is: only act in a way that you can also want for everyone without contradiction. This is what is considered moral behavior. But people were moral before Kant's formulating these ideas, and they are moral without following them. There's something off with just saying: actions in accordance with this rule are the only morally good actions.

A person who loves God, for example, might follow his dictates and do good actions; but he himself would get no moral credit for what he has done because he is simply obeying an arbitrary rule - God's rule. But what differentiates Kant's rule from God's? It's based on reason? Well, is that the only important thing we talk about when deciding the morality of an act? "He must have a good reason in mind when doing it for it to be morally good." No, not necessarily. An action can be called good while the motivation for that action is called bad. Someone who infects people without their consent with a virus in order to perfect a vaccine to help millions of third-world people has good intent, but a bad action. Clearly it's not morally good for him to have done it; yet his intentions were good. Perhaps Kant does this: An action is morally good when the good motivation and the good action coincide. But now the question is: how do we decide what counts as a good or a bad motivation in this context?

If we do it the normal way, we follow what we've been taught or exposed to. I have been strongly influenced by my parents in what I believe to be morally good and bad actions. Does that mean that what I was taught is wrong, according to Kant, if I follow those rules instead of his? But how else am I supposed to know what a bad motivation is? Surely Kant doesn't want to say, "These motivations are intrinsically (a priori) bad motivations for moral behavior." If he does say that, why should I believe him? Common understanding of what is wrong? This type of understanding is merely accidental, bearing the same relationship to absolute moral truth as phenomena bears understanding a noumenon; that is, there is no necessary relation.

But if it's not a priori, then it is accidental. A common view, yes, but accidental... and no one ever convinced someone of something by saying, "just because." It is perhaps an appeal to reason-- but not a logical necessity of being reasonable. Many things we do don't involve logic or reasons.

One might say: Kant's rules describe much of what we consider moral behavior, but they cannot dictate what is right and what is wrong (except in the most limited sense of: 'good' is following this rule).

Do you know anyone who is dieing of cancer?Tell me how that's relevant.

And I was about to go to sleep, too. :(

I am just curious: why is such a thing a duty?

Kant essentially argues that killing ourselves is disrespecting ourselves. "How" is not so clear... he seems to think that suicide can never be a rational act, but only one that is the consequence of having judgment clouded by misery.

I'm sure a Kantian would say: yes, of course; but few people are strictly Kantian.

Ethically I'm a "Kantian" of sorts, but I have no moral problem with suicide as such. Not that we shouldn't try to help a depressed person, or people who otherwise are not in their right minds... but I think there are times when it is a perfectly rational choice.

The categorical imperative here is: only act in a way that you can also want for everyone without contradiction.

The first formulation of the categorical imperative (remember, there are several) is actually that you must be able to will your maxim as universal law... not quite the same thing. Precision is important here, because this formulation of the categorical imperative is easily the most troublesome.

This is what is considered moral behavior. But people were moral before Kant's formulating these ideas,

Right, but as Kant notes, this idea can be found in common moral sense. Kant just gives a rigorous philosophical justification for it. (Surely you've heard of the Golden Rule?)

and they are moral without following them.

Well, that's the whole question, isn't it? ;)

I actually think a person can be perfectly moral without following any of Kant's imperatives, as long as he or she has the integrity to do what she believes is right, and the honesty to consider what is right rationally. It's just that Kant has the best arguments for what such a person should do.

A person who loves God, for example, might follow his dictates and do good actions; but he himself would get no moral credit for what he has done because he is simply obeying an arbitrary rule - God's rule. But what differentiates Kant's rule from God's?

Kant doesn't want us to listen to him because he's Kant, he wants us to listen to him because he's right independently of that fact.

It's based on reason?

Precisely.

Well, is that the only important thing we talk about when deciding the morality of an act?

No. There are three (main) categorical imperatives: universal law, ends-in-themselves, and realm of ends.

"He must have a good reason in mind when doing it for it to be morally good." No, not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily. Necessary... but not sufficient, as you note. ;)

An action can be called good while the motivation for that action is called bad. Someone who infects people without their consent with a virus in order to perfect a vaccine to help millions of third-world people has good intent, but a bad action.

He may have good intent, if he believes what he is doing is right, but his action is wrong because it unambiguously violates the second formulation of the categorical imperative: he has used others as mere means to his end. Again: good intent (acting "from duty") is necessary, but not sufficient.

Clearly it's not morally good for him to have done it; yet his intentions were good. Perhaps Kant does this: An action is morally good when the good motivation and the good action coincide. But now the question is: how do we decide what counts as a good or a bad motivation in this context?

Your paragraph below suggests that you really mean "good or bad action", but in case you don't: a good motivation is regard for right, a bad motivation is a concern for anything else strong enough to disregard right.

If we do it the normal way, we follow what we've been taught or exposed to. I have been strongly influenced by my parents in what I believe to be morally good and bad actions. Does that mean that what I was taught is wrong, according to Kant, if I follow those rules instead of his?

Kant would say, and I would agree, that if your parents taught you moral principles flatly inconsistent with his categorical imperatives, those moral principles are probably bad ones (or at least imperfect ones).

But they are not bad because your parents said them instead of Kant, they are bad because his categorical imperatives are well-founded quite independently of the fact that he happened to come up with them... and if you want to contest them, you have a serious philosophical argument on your hands.

But how else am I supposed to know what a bad motivation is? Surely Kant doesn't want to say, "These motivations are intrinsically (a priori) bad motivations for moral behavior."

Kant argues convincingly that the foundational principles of morality are all necessarily a priori, so, yes, he does want to say essentially that.

If he does say that, why should I believe him? Common understanding of what is wrong?

No. You should believe him because he makes a strong argument.

Look, your train of thought here suggests strongly to me that you are only familiar with Kant's conclusions, and only a limited portion of them at that. (To be fair, that's probably not your fault--more likely, it's due to the fact that you've only been exposed to his moral philosophy in the most superficial sense.) But to judge Kant on that basis is like judging the validity of a mathematical proof by just looking at the final product. What matters is the derivation, the argument... and until you understand that, of course his conclusions will appear arbitrary. What else would you expect, with conclusions so divorced from their foundations?

Kant doesn't want us to accept his categorical imperatives because they sound good. He wants us to accept his categorical imperatives because they are dictates of practical reason.

Many things we do don't involve logic or reasons.

True, not everything is covered by reason. Kant just wants us to recognize the times when things are.

Tell me how that's relevant.

Since you need to ask that, it makes it obvious that you do not.

Since you need to ask that, it makes it obvious that you do not.Are you just going to make enormous assumptions about my personal life, or are you going to back up any of the reasoning behind your claims?

It seems like you're implying that I don't consider cancer patients brave because I have no compassion for them, and I have no compassion for them because nobody I like has ever died of cancer. I don't understand how these things are connected.

Ok dyakovo, cancer runs in my family. Does that give me credibility somehow?

*mouth opens* *silence* The hell with it, I will have some peanut butter ice cream.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

I'd call it vaguely reminiscent of Warhammer's Imperium.

Sorry about the delay, life is keeping me busy and these arguments take too much thought to be done on the side.

Kant isn't talking about "knowledge that one doesn't have to go through the process of knowing." He's talking about knowledge that's bound up with the process of knowing: the form of experience that is (for us) a prerequisite for experiencing anything at all.
That makes remarkably little sense. How does one experience time? A baby doesn't know what time is or how it passes, it notes its effects on things and makes up its mind that way. It is, like all knowledge, a result of a combination of perception and the faculties of the mind.

...He's much more interested in justifying necessary truths when it comes to things as they appear to us...
And you don't see anything wrong with that sentence or process? Either something is a necessary truth, in which case any attempt at justification is silly, or its necessity can only be established from something else we already know. But we don't know anything, so whatever we establish is not necessity. It's convenience - it just happens to appear true to us, so we might as well treat it as it were.

Yes, that's right, we can never know "things in themselves." But so what? Most of modern science operates on this assumption in one form or another. What about it?
It doesn't operate on the assumption at all. It can't necessarily disprove it, just like you can't disprove solipsism or god, but the idea that what we perceive need not have any relation to reality cannot possibly be the foundation of any thought, be it scientific or otherwise, at all.

Let me use the example I earlier put to Bolol: imagine a person who is thinking about something, and comes to a conclusion she really doesn't like. But she's intellectually honest enough that she's willing to accept it, because she knows that what she likes doesn't determine truth.
There's a difference here. Truth is a matter of reality, it must necessarily exist independently of us or observation. She can't choose not to accept truth unless she is suicidal because as soon as there's a difference between the world as it is and the world as you have it in your mind your actions will no longer allow you to facilitate your survival.

If one is being honest, Kant's deontological ethics isn't like that. It's more like taste: if the person is looking at a picture and says "I like this" only because that's what the critics say, then that's following Kant. But it doesn't tell us anything about the painting and only bad things about the person. At best it tells us something about the critic.

He isn't advancing a skeptical argument, he's referencing a skeptical argument that already exists and replying to it.
The argument, however wrong, inconsistent and self-defeating it may be, is not the issue in and of itself. Its use to justify other things is.

No. We just can't know whether or not it is.
That is exactly the same thing. If I say "A is A" but we don't know whether A is actually A, then my statement is false or at best just as baseless as "A is B". The "is" implies a very clear relationship which does not exist in reality. And if it does, then its consistency with my statement is a coincidence and my words still conveyed no meaning whatsoever.

Appeal to consequences.
I think that sums up the problem with most ideas of ethics perfectly. The divorce of act and consequence when considering moral questions, the idea that the moral worth of something is not determined by what it is or what it does, but because whether it happens to be duty, or is done with good intentions, or whatever other thing people have come up with, is at the same time the divorce of the act and reality. And only if you do that can you block something in the field of ethics on the basis that it is an appeal to consequence.

Which unfortunately must leave us with ethics that appears quite right to us, but doesn't work at all for us if we need to live in reality.

There's nothing wrong with provisionally accepting the world of appearances as real. We don't really have any other option.
There's something wrong with calling something provisionally true. Especially in the field of morality.

No, we're not. You're still missing Kant's point, which is general, not specific to the cases where we are inclined to do the right thing. Kant wants us to develop our adherence to right as such. He wants us to avoid moral arbitrariness, to determine our will by reason and not by desire. He wants us to avoid trusting in the inclinations we happen to have, to realize that, logically, "It feels good" doesn't mean "I should do it."
There is only one way in which you can brush aside the question I'm asking, and that's if you don't think being good and doing one's moral duty is worthy of any positive consequence of any sort. Compliments, physical rewards or any other such thing requires that we know whether or not someone was actually morally good. By the same token, punishment requires that we know evil when we see it.

Since, when we get right down to it, it's not the rules or duties which are good, but the act of following them because they are rules, we can't simply punish those who fail to do their duties and reward those who do. We'd be rewarding/punishing people and actions of "no moral import".

So I think it matters quite a lot that we know whether or not someone did the right thing. That is, unless you think that reward and punishment should have no connection with morality.

And, of course, if after realizing what our moral duty is, if we develop the inclinations that help us fulfill it, those inclinations are not morally arbitrary at all, because they have been planted intentionally to guide us towards right. The connection is no longer incidental.
Masochism as the answer to being locked in a torture chamber. :p

His approach to morality is an attempt to conceive a positive understanding of a will not subject to causal determination, a will that escapes determinism.
He's going several steps further than that. He seems to think that because we're confronted with external influence X, we must necessarily then choose action Y. So the only way to make Y a free variable is to eliminate X.

But that's not how the world works. There's X, but the function that produces Y is not the same for everyone. It's our individuality, our own values and our own ranking of outcomes, that allows us to pick a Y from a whole set of possible actions.

And that's aside from the very real impossibility of removing X anyways. Whatever system you end up coming up with has no meaning in a world full of Xs.

I could explain to you how he actually derives the universalization formula, but it's best, I think, if we clear up some of the rest of this first. It is related, just not in the way you seem to think it is.
Please go ahead. But I hope I don't end up disappointed.

This is clearly an absurdity, because uncaused beliefs would be arbitrary with respect to the outside world. In any case, when Kant talks about the impossibility of knowing things-in-themselves, he's not talking about all knowledge at all. He's talking about knowledge of the external world, and even then only with respect to its "true" nature. We can learn plenty about how the world of appearances works; that's Kant's whole point.
I can learn plenty about Christian theology too, or marxism for that matter. That doesn't make it real or my actions any more successful. There is one external world, and it is real. If we can't know any part of it, we can't know any of it, since the missing part could well contradict what appears to be our knowledge of the rest.

Kant, of course, actually thinks that we can be sure of our existence in a certain sense... just not of much else about us.
And that certain sense also happens to be totally meaningless. If I say "I" exist but my body doesn't, then what does existence mean? Nothing.

No, he doesn't. Morality is not something we need to perceive the way we perceive things in the external world.
It's one of those causeless things, is it? Reason needs inputs. If through perceiving things we falsify them, the only way we can get a real morality is through real inputs, which means they can't be perceived. So where do they come from?

Should we participate in the world? Definitely. Should we concern ourselves with worldly things? Absolutely.
There are no actual Kantian arguments for doing it though, are there?

Kant's point is not that such things have no proper place. His point is that, in CONSIDERING their proper place, we must abstract from our attachment to them.
We are them. We can't abstract our attachment, otherwise we're those ethereal things I meant, those lifeless creatures which would be Kant's ideal human.

"I'm alive, and I need food. Let's disregard that matter and talk about something else...duty, for example.": It's the surest way to starvation, but pointing that out would be an appeal to consequence and entirely inappropriate.

But to let your desire to protest determine that place, instead of your rational analysis of how the world actually works (or of the nature of right and wrong), is to put the cart before the horse. It is irrational. It is wrong.
It's also missing the point. Going to protest because you feel like protesting really cannot achieve your goal. Doing it anyways is irrational - you're acting on the basis of a cause-effect relationship that does not exist.

Making a decision based on your self-interest can is not irrational. Not only is there no reason why self-interest is actually wrong and a morally invalid goal to be following in itself, but even if there is a moral outcome independent of self-interest, there is no reason to suspect that it can't be reached by self-interest in some proportion of cases (which may be 100% if people realise the way interdependence and cooperation work).

So whether or not there is any merit at all to Kant's point depends on what he proposes as his moral goal, his perfect vision of human existence. Only when that is presented and proven can we make the sort of clear-cut (categorical ;)) statements you're making.

Do you really think intellectual honesty is impossible? Do we only believe things because we like them? If that were the case, why do you bother arguing philosophy? Why do you bother studying economics, for that matter?
We believe things and study them because by understanding how the world is we can improve our lives. It's in our self-interest to gather knowledge. We must be able to say things with certainty for knowledge to exist and for learning to make any sense. If Kant says we can't know the truth, then we'd have to be just as silly as he is to follow him and bother to put effort into describing an illusion.

That's right. You don't believe them against your will, you accept them willfully because you let your will be determined by reason.

Kant's point is simply that considerations of RIGHT are not dependent on empirical circumstance (to borrow Hume's formulation, "is" does not imply "ought"), and a person's desire to secure a certain consequence is an empirical circumstance. In and of itself, this doesn't destroy consequentialist ethics at all (it takes the ends-in-themselves formulation to do that)--Kant really just wants to point out that instrumental reason ("do x means for y end") is not the end-all and be-all of practical reason, that it needs an independent grounding that can get us further than mere irrational adherence to inclination, mere "heteronomy".
Reason that creates a Y without an X. Why don't you just say it as it is? Adding all the things it isn't doesn't add anything.

The real question is whether reason that's not instrumental is possible, and the answer to that is "only if you're really, really drunk".

It usually means "imbued with intrinsic moral worth". And really, can you think of a time when desiring to do good is ever in itself a bad thing? Even if there are terrible consequences as a result of that intent, isn't meaning well still ameliorating some of the badness of the situation? By contrast, isn't accidentally doing the right thing while trying to accomplish evil somehow sullying the goodness of the act?
Not really. They are good or bad acts based on their consequences. If an act has neither immediate nor future bad consequences, but only good ones, I see no reason to consider intention in judging it. Nor do I see the reason in any other case, because intention and consequence aren't directly linked.

In fact, I'm not sure you can desire to do "good" independently of the act you consider doing. "Good" isn't a thing, it's an attribute and it's linked with an act by virtue of its consequences. If I say I want to do good, but I am actually doing evil, then what I'm saying is not true. At best I'm an idiot, at worst a liar.

I did an action that at face value is a highly noble and heroic one: I traded my life for the life of another.
Presumption being that this is in fact a positive act, which I don't think it is. In fact, I'm not even sure Kant would see it as such, not because of intention, but because if we made self-sacrifice to strangers the way everyone acted, we'd have an inconsistency. But that's an aside.

Now, let's suppose a different set of circumstances presents itself: suppose I am the kind of person who takes joy in doing the right thing, but when joy and "the right thing" conflict, I always do the right thing.
How can they? If they do, that to me just indicates that most of the time the right thing and joy happen to coincide (so you don't take one from the other), and that the two aren't the same is only illustrated by those conflicts, which signify that you aren't just after your own happiness.

In this case, it's much easier to say that the act had moral worth, and at a much deeper level than in the earlier example. After all, willing the right thing is of intrinsic moral worth, and the action had good consequences. Even more, it's clearly likely that by doing something heroic and saving my little brother, I am likely enjoying the results of my actions.
In both cases a kid survived. Only in one case you survived. It seems that both from your perspective, from a utilitarian perspective and from one that sees the ability of living organisms to put their values into practice as a good thing, the second case is better. Intention doesn't need to be considered, because what you want and what actually happens isn't necessarily connected and a morality that isn't grounded in reality doesn't do us, who live in reality, a lot of good.

Love, then, possesses an inconstant relation to goodness.
That's because you happened to define goodness a certain way. If I say "self-sacrifice is good" as an axiom to start with, I can find a lot of things that possess inconstant relations with it, and lots of things which downright contradict it. I can also build a whole lot of actions that are good because they represent my axiom. If I said that love = goodness, then the relation is constant. The same is true if I say that good = the freedom to act and influence the world according to one's values which is similar to good = happiness.

So again, whether any number of practical actions inspired by Kant's ethics are good depends on whether or not the particular rules he came up with are actually correct. And whether following rules against one's self-interest is good depends, as far as I can tell, on epistemology, that is the ability or lack thereof of the individual to answer questions of ethics correctly.

This example of refraining from killing yourself even if you hate life then operates as a kind of counterfactual analysis that allows me to say to myself, and me to say of someone else: I'm at least pretty sure that he did a morally praiseworthy act, because he did it for the right reasons.
Which sort of was my point. Suffering doesn't cause something to be right or tell us whether something is right, but it's the surest way of telling whether someone is doing it for the right reasons, which in deontological ethics is the question to be answered. Particularly when it then comes to making laws, incentives (in so far as those would make any sense whatsoever), or generally treating one another according to people's moral import.

Basically it seems to be saying that if you love something (in this case your life), then doing it has no moral value, and you're not doing something good. But if you hate something and you do it anyways because you feel that you have to, then that has moral value and you are doing good.

What would you call this statement?

Nonsense.

I agree that doing 'the right thing' (whatever that might be) if you're naturally inclined to do the opposite is, in moral terms, more impressive than doing the right thing because you want to and find it easy to. It's a given that doing something hard is more worthy of recognition than doing something easy.

But (bearing in mind I don't believe in any universal set of objective moral values) the right thing in a certain context is still the right thing, no matter your motivations for doing it.

That makes remarkably little sense. How does one experience time? A baby doesn't know what time is or how it passes, it notes its effects on things and makes up its mind that way. It is, like all knowledge, a result of a combination of perception and the faculties of the mind.

Yeah, so? The point is not that we experience time in a special way, it's that we can't experience anything without time.

And you don't see anything wrong with that sentence or process?

No. It makes perfect sense, if you understand Kant's argument.

Either something is a necessary truth, in which case any attempt at justification is silly, or its necessity can only be established from something else we already know. But we don't know anything, so whatever we establish is not necessity.

We know things. Kant agrees that we know things. Kant says we know nothing about certain things--namely, things-in-themselves. He's not trying to justify necessary truths about those things at all. He agrees with you that that's impossible--outside of analytic truth, anyway.

It doesn't operate on the assumption at all.

Yes, it does. Modern science makes no statement about how the world "actually" is, it just makes testable (experienceable) predictions. It's all about trying to understand the "world of appearances"; it makes no attempt to go any further.

but the idea that what we perceive need not have any relation to reality cannot possibly be the foundation of any thought, be it scientific or otherwise, at all.

It's not the "foundation", it's just one principle under which science operates.

There's a difference here. Truth is a matter of reality, it must necessarily exist independently of us or observation.

That's right. For Kant, the same is true of "right."

She can't choose not to accept truth unless she is suicidal

Bullshit, she can and plenty of people do.

If I decided that price controls were magical guarantees of economic utopia, and simply blindly denied all evidence and arguments to the contrary, it would not make a whit of difference as to my survival. But it would still be irrational. Try as you will, you can't collapse all rationality into instrumental rationality.

If one is being honest, Kant's deontological ethics isn't like that. It's more like taste: if the person is looking at a picture and says "I like this" only because that's what the critics say, then that's following Kant. But it doesn't tell us anything about the painting and only bad things about the person. At best it tells us something about the critic.

Kant says absolutely nothing of the sort. For Kant, trusting the critics is just as arbitrary as trusting inclination.

That is exactly the same thing. If I say "A is A" but we don't know whether A is actually A, then my statement is false or at best just as baseless as "A is B".

Neither of your alternatives need hold. Certainly, lack of knowledge does not imply falsity--A may be A even if I don't know that it's the case (which is what I said.) And nothing about lack of knowledge implies baselessness, either. We can make other kinds of judgments--judgments of plausibility, of likelihood, and so forth. I don't know that God doesn't exist, but I have strong reasons to suspect that He does not. "Knowledge" is a high standard.

And if it does, then its consistency with my statement is a coincidence and my words still conveyed no meaning whatsoever.

Nothing coincidental about it whatsoever, if your perception was caused by the external truth you speak of.

I think that sums up the problem with most ideas of ethics perfectly.

My point had nothing to do with ethics. I was noting your logical fallacy: you suggested that "It would be bad if this were true" is somehow an argument against it. Indeed, at no point in this discussion have you advanced any argument to indicate that Kant's point about noumena and phenomena is wrong; you have merely repeated how awful it is.

The divorce of act and consequence when considering moral questions, the idea that the moral worth of something is not determined by what it is or what it does, but because whether it happens to be duty, or is done with good intentions, or whatever other thing people have come up with, is at the same time the divorce of the act and reality.

It's really the recognition of the difference between arbitrary and non-arbitrary factors within reality. But this is, as I noted, beside the point.

There's something wrong with calling something provisionally true.

Nonsense. Gravity is "provisionally" true, too; we work under the assumption that it always holds while acknowledging that we can't really know that that's the case, and being open to the possibility that it's not.

Especially in the field of morality.

Well, it's good that Kant's argument for morality has an a priori basis, then. It's not founded in experience at all, so we don't even need to discuss provisional truth concerning it.

There is only one way in which you can brush aside the question I'm asking, and that's if you don't think being good and doing one's moral duty is worthy of any positive consequence of any sort.

Another appeal to consequences. Regardless of whether or not I think goodness is worthy of reward, it may nevertheless be true that goodness is not externally perceptible.

By the same token, punishment requires that we know evil when we see it.

No. We don't punish evil. We punish crimes. Sometimes we are morally barred from doing things within our rights; that doesn't mean we should be punished for them. Sometimes we are morally obliged to commit crimes; that doesn't mean we shouldn't be punished for them.

The point of the law is not to enforce moral obligation, but to protect people's rights: to ensure that the freedom of each citizen is consistent with the freedom of all the others. The cultivation of moral perfection is beyond its scope.

Since, when we get right down to it, it's not the rules or duties which are good, but the act of following them because they are rules,

No. Because the rules and duties are good, following them because they are good is also good.

Following them incidentally is denying their goodness.

we can't simply punish those who fail to do their duties and reward those who do.

That's right. We can't.

So I think it matters quite a lot that we know whether or not someone did the right thing.

Sure. That doesn't mean we can get around our lack of knowledge.

Masochism as the answer to being locked in a torture chamber. :p

Not how I would put it, but I'll take it. There's not necessarily anything pleasant about moral duty.

He's going several steps further than that. He seems to think that because we're confronted with external influence X, we must necessarily then choose action Y. So the only way to make Y a free variable is to eliminate X.

But that's not how the world works. There's X, but the function that produces Y is not the same for everyone. It's our individuality, our own values and our own ranking of outcomes, that allows us to pick a Y from a whole set of possible actions.

So we all serve different masters. What of it? We are still bound to the causal chain: our will is still bound to biological "want", to how nature crafted us. We are unique, but we are not free--not until we seek independent justification.

And that's aside from the very real impossibility of removing X anyways. Whatever system you end up coming up with has no meaning in a world full of Xs.

Now you're just denying free will. And while it's impossible to prove free will, it's also impossible to disprove it.

Please go ahead. But I hope I don't end up disappointed.

The quick version: if we exclude external circumstances from determination of our will (is/ought), we must seek independent justification for the principles ("maxims") behind our actions. But justification independent of circumstance is justification as such, and justification as such must be valid for will as such... will independent of any external circumstance. And that means that it must be universal: applicable to pure will, it must be applicable to all wills qua pure will.

I can learn plenty about Christian theology too, or marxism for that matter. That doesn't make it real or my actions any more successful.

No, but you forget that the world of appearances is the empirical world, the world we actually deal with. Even if we were to discover that it is all false, that we are all brains in vats being fed sensory information, the nature of the information we are being fed would still be important.

If I say "I" exist but my body doesn't, then what does existence mean? Nothing.

That's certainly not a necessary conclusion.

Reason needs inputs.

Either your definition of "inputs" is too narrow and this is false, or it is true and "inputs" is broad enough to include things that don't come to us through perception.

There are no actual Kantian arguments for doing it though, are there?

Yes, there are. Kantian ethics is committed to involvement in the real world; that's the point. We abstract from it so that we can see it more clearly when we return.

There's a reason he calls it practical reason.

We are them. We can't abstract our attachment, otherwise we're those ethereal things I meant, those lifeless creatures which would be Kant's ideal human.

No. Such things don't have any attachment at all. We are not required to rid ourselves of our attachments; we are only required to put reason ahead of them. In pursuing truth and right, we are required to approach them rationally even when doing so brings us to conclusions we don't like.

"I'm alive, and I need food. Let's disregard that matter and talk about something else...duty, for example.": It's the surest way to starvation, but pointing that out would be an appeal to consequence and entirely inappropriate.

We don't "disregard" it, we just critically examine it. The mere fact that I am starving doesn't mean I am entitled to do anything to get food. So what are my rights? How far do they go? Can I steal food from my neighbor?

If it turns out that I cannot ethically use any of the available means to get food, yes, I must starve. And, yes, an appeal to consequences doesn't change that.

It's also missing the point. Going to protest because you feel like protesting really cannot achieve your goal.

Sure it can. Your goal is to protest, to get that rebellious thrill. That's why you don't consider whether or not it's a rational route to your official goal.

Doing it anyways is irrational - you're acting on the basis of a cause-effect relationship that does not exist.

I protest. I get a thrill. Without making any empirical statement about the actual joys or lack of such involved in protesting, I don't see how that's an intrinsically unreasonable cause and effect relationship.

Making a decision based on your self-interest can is not irrational.

Only if you've first concluded that doing so is right.

but even if there is a moral outcome independent of self-interest, there is no reason to suspect that it can't be reached by self-interest in some proportion of cases

My moral outcome is "determining the will based on reason rather than inclination." Determination based on self-interest can never do that. (The same is true about determination based on compassion.)

We believe things and study them because by understanding how the world is we can improve our lives.

Not always. Indeed, often not. To someone emotionally attached to socialism, it might severely harm his or her life to accept capitalist conclusions. But it might still be rational to do so.

Reason that creates a Y without an X.

Actually, that's not so far off... but the very nature of the argument suggests to us that moral truth admits of no further criterion.

The real question is whether reason that's not instrumental is possible

Instrumental reason depends on the prospect of non-instrumental reason. Otherwise its arguments are all circular.

My recognition of "If I want to succeed, I should not be lazy" is not itself grounded in interest, but in reason. Its applicability to me may be founded in interest, but my recognition of its truth is not. (You can say, "You will fail if you discard rationality", and that may be true... but what interest-based reason do I have to accept that?)

Yeah, so? The point is not that we experience time in a special way, it's that we can't experience anything without time.
Without time as in the real thing that passes regardless of what we think or know about it? I agree.

Without time as some sort of predetermined building block that we have before we experience something, that's another matter.

We know things. Kant agrees that we know things. Kant says we know nothing about certain things--namely, things-in-themselves. He's not trying to justify necessary truths about those things at all. He agrees with you that that's impossible--outside of analytic truth, anyway.
Things that aren't things-in-themselves literally are not. They're figments of our imagination, no more real than a green sky or god. It doesn't matter at all what we find out about god and how many scriptures we study and understand. The entire endeavour of doing that learning is pointless, just as the pursuit of finding out stuff about a world that isn't actually real.

Either we're interested in the truth, existence and life, in which case no illusion can be worth pursuing and we should refuse to partake in it and die. Or we're happy to be those brains in the tanks and play batteries for the machines. If Kant were stuck in the matrix, he'd have no problem with it at all because his first reaction would be to give up any pursuit of the real truth as impossible. And those who were to try and get out would in all likelihood be violating some sort of maxim and be considered bad people for rocking the boat.

Yes, it does. Modern science makes no statement about how the world "actually" is, it just makes testable (experienceable) predictions. It's all about trying to understand the "world of appearances"; it makes no attempt to go any further.
That's because you're still assuming that the world of appearances and the world as it is are two different things. That's no better than someone who assumes god exists and starts talking about science from there.

That's right. For Kant, the same is true of "right."
On a few select issues, of course. Anything that isn't covered by his maxims is amoral and we're left with no guidance whatsoever.

If I decided that price controls were magical guarantees of economic utopia, and simply blindly denied all evidence and arguments to the contrary, it would not make a whit of difference as to my survival.
Ask the people in Zimbabwe. Just because you don't die immediately doesn't mean that you won't die. If you decide not to use sun screen and spend the rest of your life outside on an Australian beach you'll die of skin cancer too and you can't escape that relationship no matter how long it takes.

But it would still be irrational. Try as you will, you can't collapse all rationality into instrumental rationality.
Sure I can. Existence is an axiom, and as such must be the ultimate goal of any action. It is not possible to want anything other than existence without contradicting oneself. Even if there is something I value so highly that I choose to sacrifice my life for it, then the fact that something is valued presupposes my existence. I can't want anything but existence, regardless of what I end up doing with it.

So whatever goals you pick and whatever means you conclude are necessary to achieve the goal, it's all instrumental. Even if I come to the conclusion that I need to end my own existence to save someone, I can't make that conclusion without reference to the ultimate goal which tells me that going on living with that person dead is not worth it, knowing fully well that something be worth something to someone presupposes existence.

Kant says absolutely nothing of the sort. For Kant, trusting the critics is just as arbitrary as trusting inclination.
Then he shouldn't ever have stated a maxim in his books. He should have left people to figure them out by themselves, trusting in it that they'd all get the same answer.

We can make other kinds of judgments--judgments of plausibility, of likelihood, and so forth. I don't know that God doesn't exist, but I have strong reasons to suspect that He does not. "Knowledge" is a high standard.
Even statements of likelihood require knowledge about things as they are. I can't say "A is likely to be A" if I can't know anything about what A is, whether A is and therefore the relationship between one A and the other. By the same token someone who adheres to Kant cannot be anything but an agnostic. You can't say that you have strong reasons to suspect that god doesn't exist, because you don't. God is a thing as it is, and nothing you know can be said with any degree of certainty to correspond with things as they are in any way.

Nothing coincidental about it whatsoever, if your perception was caused by the external truth you speak of.
Which is one of infinitely many possible options. So yeah, I'd call it coincidental and any attempt to assign a higher probability to this particular chain of events than to the 'brain in a tank' theory "faith".

My point had nothing to do with ethics. I was noting your logical fallacy: you suggested that "It would be bad if this were true" is somehow an argument against it. Indeed, at no point in this discussion have you advanced any argument to indicate that Kant's point about noumena and phenomena is wrong; you have merely repeated how awful it is.
How can you prove it wrong? Any argument would require statements of actual truth, which you are excluding already as unknowable to us. It's like saying "the sky is green" while asserting "we can't know the colour of the sky". How is there any way I can argue against such a contradiction?

Kant says that we need space and time in order to perceive things. I say that space and time are properties of things we perceive, even though they are common to all things. But just because of that we can't say they're correct. If we say that phenomena are not things as they are, then it's dishonest in the least to come up with categories (which are just characteristics of objects we have experienced, yet which we now declare to be independent of our perception) and declare that part of what we perceive to be correct afterall.

Either we can know the truth or we cannot. You can't say we can know a part of the truth but not the other, or that we can know the truth one way but not the other (since there are no seperate ways of knowing something).

Nonsense. Gravity is "provisionally" true, too; we work under the assumption that it always holds while acknowledging that we can't really know that that's the case, and being open to the possibility that it's not.
That acknowledgement is pointless. It's not something we can act upon. It only comes about as the result of wanting to declare our knowledge about gravity as not absolute (and knowledge that is not absolute is not knowledge), but why anyone would want that is beyond me.

The point of the law is not to enforce moral obligation, but to protect people's rights: to ensure that the freedom of each citizen is consistent with the freedom of all the others. The cultivation of moral perfection is beyond its scope.
On the plus side, that means that Kant's ethics can't possibly form the basis for law. And whatever he wants to tell me are duties is really of absolutely no concern to me.

So we all serve different masters. What of it? We are still bound to the causal chain: our will is still bound to biological "want", to how nature crafted us. We are unique, but we are not free--not until we seek independent justification.
That needs a different thread.

The quick version: if we exclude external circumstances from determination of our will (is/ought), we must seek independent justification for the principles ("maxims") behind our actions. But justification independent of circumstance is justification as such, and justification as such must be valid for will as such... will independent of any external circumstance. And that means that it must be universal: applicable to pure will, it must be applicable to all wills qua pure will.
And that's different from pretending that it's not really me making the decision? I don't see it. "Me" isn't just floating in the ether, me is also a body with wants, needs and material concerns. If I am to make decisions in the future, I'm constrained with regards to possible choices. If I don't take account of that fact, I must deny that my life is an ultimate value, which is a contradiction because any value requires life.

In short: independent justification, ie justification as such is, as you'd accept, justification without anyone doing the justifying, the recognising or the reasoning. It's not valid, it cannot possibly be.

That's certainly not a necessary conclusion.
"...try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals."

No. Such things don't have any attachment at all. We are not required to rid ourselves of our attachments; we are only required to put reason ahead of them. In pursuing truth and right, we are required to approach them rationally even when doing so brings us to conclusions we don't like.
I think I've outlined why that's not possible.

Sure it can. Your goal is to protest, to get that rebellious thrill. That's why you don't consider whether or not it's a rational route to your official goal.
Then we're talking about something else. You have a goal, and your pursue it. You also have a different goal, which your pursuit of the former doesn't affect.

Unless you expect that somehow it does, meaning you're actually protesting to change something afterall, it's not irrational.

Only if you've first concluded that doing so is right.
It's not irrational even if right had nothing to do with it. Making a decision based on self-interest is necessarily a rational process of weighing up pros and cons, selecting tools and putting things into action, even if for example it fell outside any maxim Kant can establish.

My moral outcome is "determining the will based on reason rather than inclination." Determination based on self-interest can never do that. (The same is true about determination based on compassion.)
That's no more a moral outcome than that we all become omnipotent. It's not possible, it's a contradiction. Arguing about the moral value of a contradiction is tedious and not particularly productive.

Not always. Indeed, often not. To someone emotionally attached to socialism, it might severely harm his or her life to accept capitalist conclusions. But it might still be rational to do so.
That's because the harm is less than the harm caused by continuing with socialism. And that's not universal, there are plenty of people who are socialists despite knowing what capitalism is. Those people are objectively wrong, but they value the emotional gain more highly than the real-world negative consequences. And in some cases they even do that when they are in a position to inflict very serious real-world consequences not just on them but on others too.

(You can say, "You will fail if you discard rationality", and that may be true... but what interest-based reason do I have to accept that?)
If you don't, you will at some point discard rationality and fail. Can failure be in your interest? Not consistently, not as a goal in itself. Failure can at best be in your interest as a means to achieve some further end, and if you recognise that your choice to discard rationality is in itself a reasonable one.