Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Introduction-
Kant’s own revolution puts humanity back in the center. For Kant argued that the rational order which the metaphysician looks for in the world is neither something that we discover through experience, nor something that our reason assures us must be there. Instead, it is something which we human beings impose upon the world, in part through the construction of our knowledge, but also, in a different way, through our actions.
Preface----
There are three sciences: Physics, ethics, and logic.
Logic can have no empirical part. If it came from the outside world, it wouldn’t be logic.
It must hold for all thinking and be demonstrated.
Natural and Moral philosophy can have empirical parts.
Natural philosophy must include empirical parts. Since it determines how the world works.
Moral philosophy is empirical because it works with how the world OUGHT to work.
All trades gain by the division of labor. It is totally necessary that all parts of philosophy, the quasi empiricist moralist (independent thinker type) and the rationalist (hair splitting type).
He wants to work out a pure moral philosophy completely cleansed of everything that may be only empirical and that belongs to anthropology. For example, “thou shalt not lie” doesn’t just hold for human beings. It is a pure metaphysical truth without regard to circumstance.
Otherwise, if it is based even in part on circumstance, it can be called a practical rule, but not moral law.
This metaphysics of morals is totally necessary so that they aren’t corrupted by circumstance.
You can only have a pure metaphysic when you don’t only comply with the law, but do it for the sake of the law. It isn’t tied down to circumstance or punishment or result.
Since this can only be found in pure philosophy, it comes before moral philosophy.
This also must be free of volition and other factors of psychology. It is pure. Such psychology types do talk of morals. But they do so without warrant/grounding. They talk of what the mind wants, but not pure rationality. They come up with obligations based on greater and lesser desires, but again, its not properly grounded.
Actually, correct morals can be gotten fairly easily. But, the pure speculative is harder.
The present ground work can serve as the rational underpinning by which others can build moral philosophies.
He purposely isn’t going to look at outcomes or examples. These would cloud the purity of his thought.
He is going to go from cognition to its supreme basis back
to morality in three sections:
1) Transition from common rational to philosophical moral cognition.
2) Transition from popular moral philosophy to metaphysics of morals.
3) Final step from metaphysics of morals to the critique of pure practical reason.
SECTION I: TRANSITION FROM
COMMON
RATIONAL TO PHILOSOPHICAL
MORAL OBLIGATION.
Qualities of temperament can be good (courage, resolution and perseverance) but they could also lead to evil. Only good will is purely good without limitation.
Evil things can cause happiness, but not good will. [how would he define that? Didn’t Hitler have good will?]
Good will brings one into conformity with universal ends.
Rational will would not be happy with prosperity that lacked good will.
FIRST!!! Good will is good without regard to outcome in-and-of-itself. Usefulness would only be a benefit in so far as it helps you sell it to others.
It doesn’t even diminish in accordance to your ability to carry it out.
We cannot be only for preservation, welfare or happiness. Those things would be much better accomplished without the aid of thinking (just by instinct).
He thinks that reason isn’t for practical use (obtaining happiness and preservation). Instinct is.
The more a cultivated reason concerns itself with enjoyment of life, and happiness, the farther away one gets from satisfaction.
With bitterness, those who have put reason to this end end up in misology (hatred of reason). They see science and such as a luxury item. Herein they find that reason only makes them more encumbered and they envy common folk.
Practical reason can bend the will, and as all things have a purpose, the true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good, not as a means to other purposes, but good in-and-of-itself. This is shown to be reasons vocation because reason was required to bend the will by absolute necessity.
The attainment of good will limits, in many ways, happiness (which is always conditional). Indeed, it may reduce it below zero. This is because reason in the establishment of a good will is capable only of its own kind of satisfaction.
To clarify good will, we must set before ourselves the concept of duty. Though encumbered, duty makes good will shine even more brightly via contrast.
He sets aside breaches of duty and things that are really in conformity with duty, but to which human beings have no inclination, but are compelled to do.
He seeks to expound on duty done from duty (not a self-seeking purpose).
An Example!! Is a merchant who doesn’t overcharge an inexperienced customer. He may be doing it for self-serving reasons (it is hard to tell).
On the other hand, to preserve one’s life is a duty, and besides everyone has an immediate inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care that most people take of their life has no inner worth. This job well done has no moral content. Why? Because they are living in conformity with duty, but not for duty.
If a man who is depressed and wishes to die continues his life out of moral duty, this has moral content.
People seek honor via duty. But only seeking duty for duty gives moral content. This gives you higher worth through character.
TO assure one’s own happiness is a duty!! (at least indirectly). That is because if you are in much discomfort, it will tempt you to transgress against duty.
The precept of happiness unites inclinations. But you should seek happiness, not from inclination, but from duty. Then the inclination has proper moral worth.
We can see the distinction is Jesus’ “love thy neighbor”. One cannot command love. But one can command practical beneficence from duty. It is practical, not pathological love he commands. The practical lies in the will. The pathological lies in feeling.
SECOND!!! Moral worth is not in the purpose to be attained or realization, but simply volition. The goodness of this will cannot lie outside of itself.
Will stands between the formal world and the material world. It must be judged by the formal principle.
THIRD!! Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law. For an object, I can have an inclination but not respect. That’s cause it is an effect, but not an activity of a will. Only that which doesn’t take in my inclinations is truly worthy of respect and so a command.
All these effects, wills and inclinations, could have been brought about by other causes, so that no rational being was necessary. And the rationalness of us contains the highest and unconditional good. The representation of the law can only occur in a rational being.
That law cannot be concerned with effect and still be said to by the good absolutely and without limitation.
All that is left is that the universal will serves the principle “I ought never to act exept in such a way that I could also will that m maxim should become a universal law.”
Common human reason also agrees completely with this in its practical appraisals. For ex, may I , make a promise with the intention not keep it? It may be prudent to make a false promise knowingly but not in conformity with duty.
It is not enough to tell the truth out of results feared. I must tell it due to reverence for duty.
I don’t need any penetrating acuteness to see that if all lied to their advantage, it would be a rotten world. [but they could lie out of fear and not duty and we’d be okay, but then again, John , Do you want to live in a universe where people all live out of fear? No much better they act out of good will, furthermore, could this serve as a justification for sterilizing? I wish that the sterilization after the third child become a universal law? Yes. There is an unfortunate vagueness to this law. It could be used to back up or attack the death penalty. It might take the death penalty because it is not done from inclination, or go against it because it is not from inclination Could I make it a universal law that all people work relentlessly, don’t eat or sleep or go to the movies? Yes. But, I could will, that all communistically rotate their jobs. But I could not will that people work inefficiently. But we are to be regardless of outcome.]
It would seem to be good to have rules be simple and accessible to common understanding. The disadvantage here would be that they would be easily open to attack. It is easily seduced. Temptation will blow over a poorly bolstered edifice. Furthermore, temptation gives us motive to deconstruct the logic of morality.
Therefore, we need a complete critique of our reason.
SECTION II – TRANSITION FROM
POPULAR
MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO
METAPHYSICS OF MORALS
Some doubt that there is an inclination towards duty. That is because folks honor it more in breech than compliance. Also it appears as though much of what passes for work done of duty is actually done out of self-love. Perhaps all is done from self-love.
Hence they didn’t question the correctness of the concept of morality, but didn’t see it inspiring enough respect to make frail humans follow it.
Indeed we can’t tell why people conform to duty when they do. Even with self-examination. We can’t see that there may not have been some impulse of self-lobe, under mere pretence. We like to flatter ourselves. Reasons being covert are easy to hide.
You could ask with pure reason, though, whether duty for duty is what OUGHT to happen.
We realize that moral law must hold for all rational beings, not just humans!?! We cannot base it, then, on contingencies of human conditions.
It would be bad advice to tell people only to be moral if they’ve seen others do it. Not even Jesus had that standard. He said I’m not good, god is (who we don’t see). And god has to live up to a standard of the idea of moral perfection.
A priori, the concept of moral goodness presupposes free will.
Examples are cool, but they can never justify ignoring the true original.
The doctrine of morality must be first grounded on metaphysics and then it can be given access by means of popularity. But it is absurd to think that we start with what is popular and work our way back to pure philosophy!
And one shouldn’t go for readability by the masses at the expense of philosophical clarity and groundedness. This would create a hodgepodge of patchwork observations and half-rationalized principles in which shallow pates revel because it is something useful for everyday chitchat.
Popularizations always stray from pure reason. But an isolated metaphysics of morals is needed.
Another reason that pure reason is needed is that a hodgepodge cannot be subsumed under any principle. You waver under many motives instead.
All moral concepts, therefore, must have their seat and origin completely in a priori reason. They don’t want to be from empirical and therefore empirical. The purity of their origin should lie in their dignity. This would mean that any empirical aim you add to them subtracts their dignity and worth. An expose of pure rational cognition unmixed by special natures of human reason.
Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being, however, has the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws/principles. And only a rational being has a will.
Reason should determine will. The will is concerned with actions and therefore: practical reason.
There should be a direct line from reason to will. Some folk can do this some can’t. Their will is exposed to subjectivity. They aren’t acting according to reason’s precepts and are therefore called necessitation. The objective laws being needed, not when the reason is seen (in which case it isn’t needed) is called an imperative.
All imperatives are conveyed as “oughts”. This shows the relation of an objective law of reason to a will. This is a necessitation.
Practical good, however, is that which determines the will by means of representation of reason. It is good to stand under the objective law, but not be necessitated. That is due to free will and motivation being so crucial.
There is no “ought” for holy beings. They just will. Imperatives are only for those of faulty will.
What’s a categorical?
All imperative are either hypothetical or categorical. Hypothetical deals with a possible action for achieving something else. The categorical would represent an action being necessary of itself, without reference to another end.
The categorical doesn’t refer to what I want to do. To the extent that it is apart from ends it is an apodictically practical principle.
Since all rational principles must be channeled through wills. Those with ends are innumerable. These are called then imperatives of skill. This is apart from whether or not the goal is laudable. Parents and education is really concerned with giving people skills so they can use them. This is to the neglect of the valuation of the worthiness of various ends.
There is one end that all have. That is happiness. The hypothetical imperative that represents the practical necessity of an action as a means to the promotion of happiness is called assertoric.
This end can be presupposed surely and a priori in all humans as it is our essence. The skill in the choice of means is called prudence.
Finally
There is another categorical (agin, and –end-in –itself) concerned with principle and not outcome or experience, the imperative of morality.
Whoever wills an end also wills the indispensably necessary means to it that are within his power.
[maybe not. I want to reduce population, but I don’t will to kill. Perhaps wil and desire are different though.]
Unfortunately, happiness is such an indeterminant concept that the means doesn’t pop up. And it isn’t always apparently what he (through poor aim at a moving target) wishes or wills.
The problem is that all ideas that go towards happiness are empirical. And for it is requires a whole. A maximum of well being in my present condition and in every future condition. The most insightful god might not know what he wills here. Money,, cars etc. all come with complications. Even knowledge will show you hidden problems or burden him with more to do.
There is no principal that would tell you what to do in order to be happy.
You therefore must use empirical counsels (frugality, courtesy etc)
There cannot be an imperative of happiness, because happiness isn’t based on understanding. Its based on imagination, which rests on empirical grounds. When things are on empirical grounds you can never guess all the variables.
Prudence is just a means to an end (happiness)
Imperative of morality would be an end and not a means.
It would have the tenor of a practical law. Otherwise it will be full of contingencies.
Others can be called principles of the will, but not laws.
It would have to built on disinterested reason as to not get muddied by selfish parochial considerations.
Therefore we get the categorical imperative.
Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. This could also say “universal law of nature”.
The law must be universal to be categorical. Therefore, it must be defined by the need for it to be universal.
Examples
1) Someone is considering suicide. You kill yourself out of mercy and self love.
2) Another is going to lie in order to get a loan they need. Can’t be universal , therefore violates duty.
3) A third has talent, but doesn’t use it. He could, as a South Sea culture, survive and have amusements. But does it violate duty? Yes. You could not will that people everywhere did so. “For as a rational being he necessarily wills that all the capacities in him be developed, since they serve him and are given to him for all sorts of possible purposes.”
4) One does well while others undergo hardships and he ignores it. As heaven wills it, I take nothing from anyone and neither demand from them. We could survive under such a system. But we could not will it. We could not will away sympathy and love.
So in some, the law would be a disaster, in other we come upon contradictions with reason. Others we couldn’t really will.
The suicide one is strict narrow and UNREMITTING
The money borrowing is MERITORIOUS. This is a matter of right and wrong.
If we are in the transgression of a duty, we see that we aren’t making an exception. For as we are reasonable the law derived from the reason still holds and to will otherwise would be a contradiction. This is a clash of the universal with the subjective point of view. It turns a law into a generality.
But we still haven’t proven a priori that there is such an imperative, that there is a practical law, which commands absolutely of itself without and incentives, and that the observance of this law is a duty.
We should make the mistake of adopting it from human nature as it must apply to all rational beings. Only then could it properly be an imperative.
Then again the propensities of man can yield maxims, but not laws. And we aren’t directed to act on these.
But we must be aware of these empirical tendencies. They corrupt pure law. “…it substitutes for morality a bastard patched up from limbs of quite diverse ancestry which looks like whatever one wants to see in it but not like virtue for him who has once seen virtue in her true form.”
It is rational to always judge yourself by the laws which your rational nature dictates.
We therefore, don’t need to examine what the subjective evaluation would be in particular situations.
This might constitute a philosophy of nature. But here we ask of the relation of the will to itself insofar as it only determines itself by reason.
The subjective ground of desire is an incentive; the objective ground of volition is a motive. Both have a goal.
Every rational being exists as an end in itself. He must be regarded as an end.
The inclinations aren’t valuable in and of themselves. But only as they serve the rational being (the ultimate end).
Our inclinations aren’t rational and are called things.
We are rational and are called persons.
Others aren’t subjective ends (valuable as they relate to us), but objective ends. Valuable as ends in and of themselves.
No other end, to which they would only be a mean, can be legitimated.
Worth as reason based must be universal. Worth cannot be contingent.
Rational nature exists as an end in itself.
Every rational being necessarily sees itself this way. Others just as me, all.
Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.
Examples!!
1) Suicide:
Is this consistent in treating humanity as an end in itself.
2) False promiser definitely uses someone as a means. In this example he also decries taking someone’s property for a reason.
3) With respect to duty (meritorious) to oneself, it is not enough that the action doesn’t conflict with humanity in our person; it must also harmonize with it. Humanity has a predisposition to perfection. It might not go against the preservation of us as und. But it goes against furtherance of it.
4) The natural end that all human beings have is their own happiness. Again, ignoring the others gives us a negative and not a positive agreement with humanity as an end in itself.. We must try to further the ends of others.
This principle is not borrowed from experience. This is seen in that it applies to everyone universally. It is also excluded from interest as incentive. This is done in the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law.
A will that stands under a law may do so by some interest. A will that is itself the supreme lawgiver cannot depend upon some interest. And since it isn’t based on interests, it is unconditional.
Thus the principal of Every human will as a will giving universal law through all its maxims.
The previous shot at duties were too abstract. They needed only to act to laws given by himself in conformity with his own will. Laws that don’t come from within you necessitate attraction or constraint. All labor to find a supreme ground of duty outside of yourself was lost because it looked at a particular interest outside of yourself.
Laws that come from within are autonomy of the will. From without Heteronomy of the will.
By kingdom he means a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. From all treating all as ends people’s relations are structured. A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as a sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other.
A rational being must always regard himself as lawgiving in a kingdom of ends possible through freedom of the will. He cannot be sovereign unless he is completely independent of needs.
Morality consists, then, in the reference to all lawgivers. If you change your subjective action desire to it that is duty (practical necessitation).
Duty does not depend on feelings, impulses or inclinations, but on the relation to each other for the dignity of a rational being.
Skill and diligence in work have a market price; wit lively imagination and humor have a fancy price; on the other hand, fidelity in promises and benevolence from basic principles (not instinct) have inner worth.
Nature and art haven’t got these, and don’t provide example but a disposition to being a thing in itself. They emanate their will naturally. Nothing but reason is required to coax it out of them. Which would be a violation of the objects duty, the things therefore, have dignity, which is above all price.
As disinterested as the art we have autonomy and dignity.
We started with good will. The above is good will.
Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by setting itself up as and end.
If we thing of applications of the maxim it becomes a means, therefore, think of it as independently existing: a negative not to be acted against, in and of itself. As each lawgiver is an end, in a kingdom of ends.
A kingdom of ends is analogous to the kingdom of nature (though one moves from maxims and one , external efficient causes. So there is a kingdom of nature and a kingdom of ends. Both in and of themselves independent.
[what was so annoying about the guy in Dr. Raycee’s office was that he, when asked about school reform, looked to his own experience, not the independent universal rule, but should have happened, no what did happen, in his particular instance. And every story was so obviously self serving]
Paradoxically, each humans worthiness comes from their independence from the law of ends and their conformity to it.
Paradoxically to judge one by such rules, is to not see them as an end. A supreme judge would have to be autonomous then.
Morality thus is the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is to a possible giving of universal laws through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that doesn’t accord is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy , absolutely good will. If we aren’t absolutely that good, its not holy, but obligation. The objective version of which is called duty. Duty is, fulfilling your own will.
AUTONOMY OF THE WILL AS THE SUPREME PRINICPLE OF MORALITY
[a title out of nowhere]
choose only so that the maxim your choice are also included. But this can’t be proven.
HETERONOMY OF THE WILL AS THE SOURCE OF ALL SPURIOUS PRINCILES OF MORALITY [another title out of nowhere]
Your moral law must not come from other than the rational being. If it is done with an object giving morals, what the object demands, we get into heteronomy.
You don’t not lie in order to keep your reputation. You do it because it violates rationality in and of itself.
DIVISION OF ALL POSSIBLE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY TAKEN FROM HETERONOMY ASSUMED AS THE BASIC CONCEPT
We make mistakes before we get it right. In morality the mistakes come in two flavors: empirical and rational. The empirical mistake comes from seeking happiness. The rational mistake comes from seeking perfection.
Moralities based on happiness show an inconsistency as the situation changes (and for different characters), the good and the happiness are obviously not always in accord, and really is wrong because its premise starts by putting virtue off to one side and dignity off to one side and therefore, can’t be morality.
But it is done at the expense of telling her, I don’t respect you for you, but only for what I can get out of you. It turns virtue into a whore. Your will cannot come from the object of your will. This leads to a heteronomy in which the imperative is conditional.
Perfection is a circle that has no end, but its better than basing your that subsuming yourself to a god that just believes in glory and dominion and power and vengefulness.
But if he had to choose between perfection and moral sense (neither of which can serve for the base of morality (though they don’t interfere with it as such), he’d choose perfection. Because we then leave the Court of sensibility and go to the courts of pure reason. It still has an indeterminant idea of the good.
In this section he’s
shown what a morality must look like, though not proven that it must exist.
SECTION 3 – TRANSITION FROM METAPHYSICS OF MORALS TO THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
THE CONEPT OF FREEDOM IS THE KEY TO THE EXPLANATION OF THE AUTONOMY OF THE WILL
Freedom is that property that keeps the will from being determined.
But that is a negative definition.
Positively, cause and effect leaves no room for freedom but freedom is will’s property of giving laws to itself. It, again, must be under the categorical imperative, as the outside causes are determined and a heteronomy.
The idea that the absolutely good will is that whose maxim can always contain itself regarded as a universal law” Is a synthetic proposition..
He parts of synthetic proposition can only be put together by a third thing in which they are all to be found.
Freedom leads us to it. But that a prior, nor can the deduction of the concept of freedom from pure practical reason be shown yet.
FREEDOM MUST BE PRESUPPOSED AS A PROPERTY OF THE WILL OF ALL RATIONAL BEINGS.
We are moral only to the extent that we are rational, and since morality must be derived from freedom, freedom must be proved as a property of all rational beings.
No one can possibly think of a reason that would consciously take direction from any other source than reason. And it must see itself independent of alien influences; consequently it must be regarded of itself as free.
OF THE INTEREST ATTACHING TO THE IDEAS OF MORALITY
So morality has been traced back to freedom. We didn’t prove it though. We just said we need it to see ourselves as thinkers.
Why should we submit ourselves to reason? Why should we judge our worth by our compliance to it? Whatever justification we find, must outweigh the value of following our interest.
And all of these definitions and followings are circular. [he admits it!!!]
His tact, to compare the outcomes of his morality to empiricism [isn’t this meeting them on their own grounds?]
We don’t know what things are in and of themselves. And we must admit that behind appearances there must be some thing in and of itself. But we resign ourselves to never being able to get at the thing in and of itself.
This shows a difference between a world of sense and a world of understanding.
The senses change depending on who is looking how. Understanding happens the same universally.
We can only get final knowledge of ourselves through our senses. We exist independent of our thoughts to the contrary. The empirical things are perceived by the ego. To the extent that we are looking out we are in the world of sense. But what we don’t know via senses, must count as coming from the intellectual world (of which we have no further cognizance).
Now we distinguish ourselves, naturally, from the natural world. Reason is the capacity by which he does this. This purity is raised even above understanding in that it is pure activity. Understanding contains sense objects and organizes them under rules t ounite them in one consciousness. Without understanding we would think nothing at all.
Reason shows ideas a spontaneity so pure that it goes beyond sensibility and shows its highest ability in separating the understanding from reason.
Because of this, a rational being must regard himself as intelligence (hence not from the side of his lower powers).
Reason can choose then two basis of action: understanding or pure reason. As a being of reason we must think ourselves free and autonomous to choose. Autonomy is the ground of all reason, just as nature is the ground of all appearances.
Thus we have found a ground for moral law. For if we think of ourselves as part of the sense world we think of ourselves as determined. But if we think of the nonsense world, we think free.
HOW IS A CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE POSSIBLE?
Will is the efficient cause of intelligence. Intelligence is conscious of himself as belonging both to rationality and the world of senses.
He puts desires and inclinations as coming from without.
From reason we get morality. From desire we get happiness.
Since I necessarily conceive of myself as being free in the world by way of reason, I am bound by its imperatives for me, and action in conformity which are duties.
Since I also intuit that I am in the sense world.
And as I must follow the imperatives in reason (categorical imperative, etc.,) I ought to follow it in the sense world.
This categorical (universal) ought is a synthetic proposition a priori.
This synthesis of reason and the world is like the synthesis of understanding (which gives order to the chaos of senses) and intuitions, which make possible synthetic propositions a priori on which all cognition of a nature rests.
The practical use of common human reason confirms the correctness of this deduction.
There is no scoundrel who when seeing good characteristics (honesty, steadfastness, etc) doesn’t want to be that way. But he can’t bring this about because of his impulses and inclinations. Yet he finds these inclinations burdensome. Hence he proves that with a will free from impulses of sensibility he transfers himself in thought, he can only expect a greater inner worth of his person. He also transfers himself to the standpoint of a member of the world of understanding, as the idea of freedom,that is, of independence from determining causes of the world of sense.
So you should see morality as a natural extension of your understood will. It is only when enthralled by the sense world, that you see morality as contrary to your will. Only in such delusion is morality an “ought”.
ONE THE EXTREME BOUNDARY OF ALL PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
All human beings think of themselves as having free will. This is the forum in which we judge our actions to have been right or wrong.
But the idea of freedom cannot have come from experience since it always remains even when the evidence is to the contrary.
[at this point I saw a young man take a find a wallet on the ground. I did nothing. This made me think I will bury this memory, according to the Darwinian principle: This is why I’m writing this. It also makes me think of Aristotle saying that its not a matter of principles. If you aren’t prepared to answer by habit, then you aren’t capable.]
Yet everything must work within the laws of nature. And the need for things to work in accord with the laws of nature a priori due to its necessity. And indeed we couldn’t subsist without it.
Hence freedom is only an idea of reason, the object validity of which seems doubtful.
For speculative purposes (read scientific, business purposes) the use of natural necessity is much more traveled and useable than freedom. For practical purposes, the footpath of freedom is the one we must use.
Hence free will and necessity are true (for different purposes) We can prove freedom and determinism. The contradiction is a human made one. It results from limits of our thinking.
We realize that the idea of freedom is in contradistinction to our emotions. It is also seen to be derived from an objective point of view. A person who thus regards himself as an intelligence in the sensible determined world sees that there is no contradiction, but a distinction.
Hence the intelligent person claims nothing from the determined world to be a part of him. He doesn’t let them influence his maxims. And, furthermore, sees that as a human being he is only the appearance of himself.
All of this only gives negative distinction to intelligence. It doesn’t lay down the rules of reason. It does, however, tell us that we are capable of acting and that we are capable of acting in conformity with the essence of rational ways (universally valid maxims).
But if practical reason tries to say something about a motive from the world of understanding it oversteps its bounds. Understanding is only a standpoint that reason takes in order to see itself.
This thought requires another realm of being. Rational beings as things in themselves. But he is just thinking of this as a formal category.
The limit here is that we cannot explain the practical reason. We only know laws of reason within itself. There can be no analogy to experienced things.
Now that we look at Darwinian thought, we can totally detach better from all manipulation.
Another limit is the subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will. Another, taking interest in moral laws ----(an interest is that by which reason becomes practical . A rational being takes an interest in something. A non-rational creature feels sensible impulses. Reason takes interest only when the universal is the ground of the reason to take interest. Only such an interest is pure. To use reason to reach a goal you feel like attaining is to use reason as a means. The logical interest of reason (to further its insights) is never immediate, but presupposes purposes for its use)).
[But doesn’t this drag it down. And what use would there be? Oh!! The furtherance of reason as an end.]
--- and yet he does take an interest in them. That leads us to moral feeling. But this is a bad basis. That is they seek to use the subjective feeling that the law makes on the human as the basis. But interested feeling of this world could never give you a universal free rational morality. [maybe this is where he (I) go wrong. The subjective does give us a key to what has worked. But it is self-interested. It also CAN give bad , solely instinctual , advice. His seems better , but it ignores human suffering. And why wouldn’t you want someone to do such an act on to you? That is because of the feeling it engenders. That is unless you only act to further someone’s rational being. That would be a better world. But entirely controlled. Not practical, but perhaps desirable? Do I lack for drama? Or is mine the most beautiful? I have the greatest s freedom. Perhaps I am stuck. Perhaps I should worry about right and wrong, not my ya-yas. This makes my war right or wrong this is the crux, the proposition of pure reason undetermined].
In order to induce someone to do right, there must be a component of pleasure or delight in the fulfillment of duty. [he is with me]. But it is hard to see how a thought which contains nothing sensible could create a feeling of pleasure a priori. And since we can’t mix pure reason and experience, it is impossible to see why a universal law would interest us. It can only be said to be right as it arose from our will and so is proper for us. And what belongs to appearances is necessarily subordinate to reason.
It is a necessary side effect of freedom. But how the freedom of the will is possible cannot be seen. But freedom of the will is necessarily thought. From this we can garner that it will establish rules for itself. But why would it want to follow them?
I can revel in thought itself. But can have no proper idea of it. It is only something that is left over when I have taken away what it isn’t (sense).
This conversation is happening about the form of pure reason, which can deduce the categorical laws. But we cannot deduce a reason to follow them Here, then, is the highest limit of all moral inquiry. Reason cannot search the sensible world for maxims. That is degrading and impure. Yet it shouldn’t impotently flap its wings without moving from the space of transcendent concepts called the intelligible world.
The idea of the non-determined sensible world is useful for the sake of rational belief, even if all knowledge stops at its boundary, and useful for creating an interest in moral law by means of the noble ideal of the kingdom of ends.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The preceding leads to laws of morality. But only for rational beings. We have to investigate, because without investigating reason we it wouldn’t properly be called reason.
But it is a limitation that by such reason we cannot see the necessity of such laws being implemented. It can only be tried in conditional places Thus it restlessly seeks an unconditional necessity and is constrained to just assume it. It can only be brought before the court of reason.
And it won’t be tried in the court of actual conditions. This is its limit. This is the boundary of human reason.
[Office hours prep: Kant says the logical interest of reason is to further it’s insights without purpose presupposed. In other places he says self-perfection isn’t a good goal.
The Moral Animal uses evolutionary psych to show what we do. Kant shows what we ought to do.
Complication: We shouldn’t’want to do duty for pleasure (pleasure is sense and not reasonable). You’d be enslaved to the good feeling and not free.
We can deduce a categorical law, but we can’t deduce a reason to follow it.
This is the limit of moral inquiry.
We aren’t rational!! But we should be. People can’t make decisions without an amygdala. There is a should in emotions too. They help us with survival. This is the ultimate should
Rationally we have to opposites
1) We should kill 9/10ths of population
2) We wouldn’t want to live in such a world.
On second thought, #1 uses senses. That is it depends on empirical information.
And, #2 doesn’t use sense thought.
On second second thought, #2 also uses senses. Because the contradiction of will test always comes back to would we want to . That is a pleasure/sense/selfish thing.
Prof says that Kant’s plea for society outside of one’s self is in metaphysics of morals pt 2.
The idea that he helped me generate is, that pragmatism can be a lens through which we utilize different systems in different situations. We could use utilitarianism in administration of justice, Aristotle in education, Kant in morality, etc.
The author of Kant’s introduction wrote a book about how to achieve the “Kingdom of Ends” . Kool to read!!! Buy on line!!!!