Understanding Kant

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

To say that Kant's logic doesn't work because it's contrary to the way things work in the real world is to miss the point entirely.

I'm not saying the logic doesn't work because it's contrary to the way things work. I'm saying it doesn't work because it draws conclusions about the way things work that are false.

Joefromchicago wrote:

In effect, you're saying that Kant's system of ethics doesn't account for its real-world consequences, but that's just imposing a consequentialist mindset onto Kant's idealism.

No it isn't. I'm not saying an idealist has to draw conclusions about how the real world works. I'm just saying that if he chooses to draw such concluions, they better be correct. The choice to draw conclusions about consequences is Kant's, not mine. He's the one alleging that contract law be rendered useless if we can save lives by lying.

joefromchicago wrote:

If, on the other hand, you want to say that saving a life is more categorical than telling the truth, then you're positing a conflict that, I think, Kant did not believe was possible.

I want to say they both have the same standing under the categorical imperative, and that therefore there is a conflict. Consequently, Kant must be wrong about something. Either he is wrong to postulate the Categorical Imperative in the first place, or he is wrong in inferring from the Categorical Imperative an unqualified duty to tell the truth.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

I want to say they both have the same standing under the categorical imperative, and that therefore there is a conflict. Consequently, Kant must be wrong about something. Either he is wrong to postulate the Categorical Imperative in the first place, or he is wrong in inferring from the Categorical Imperative an unqualified duty to tell the truth.

Mostly he is plain wrong in asserting an Absolute Moral Imperative to tell the Truth always...no better proof then Reality itself everyday ! What other purpose would lying serve if not a practical real substantial purpose ?
...and that in turn does n´t rule out that saying the Truth can proof itself very useful many many times...it simply, common sense, its relative...it depends on the occasion ! Its rather a matter of considering what can produce more equilibrium given the variables implied in each circumstance...

LYING SOMETIMES CAN REDUCE "NOISE" AND AUGMENT EFFICIENCY BY DISCARDING NEGLIGIBLE VARIABLES TO PRODUCE (AS THEY SAY IN PHYSICS) "WORK" !

...now, don´t mind the arrogance (not intended as such), this is talking the true talk !

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@Fil Albuquerque,

No doubt there is a small Spanish village that's looking for its idiot.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

I'm not saying the logic doesn't work because it's contrary to the way things work. I'm saying it doesn't work because it draws conclusions about the way things work that are false.

In the words of Ronald Reagan: "There you go again." You criticize Kant for being empirically wrong. That's just imposing your utilitarian standard of "rightness" on Kant.

Thomas wrote:

No it isn't. I'm not saying an idealist has to draw conclusions about how the real world works. I'm just saying that if he chooses to draw such concluions, they better be correct. The choice to draw conclusions about consequences is Kant's, not mine. He's the one alleging that contract law be rendered useless if we can save lives by lying.

Again, that's not an empirical consequence, that's a logical consequence. I weary of having to explain this to you over and over.

Thomas wrote:

I want to say they both have the same standing under the categorical imperative, and that therefore there is a conflict. Consequently, Kant must be wrong about something. Either he is wrong to postulate the Categorical Imperative in the first place, or he is wrong in inferring from the Categorical Imperative an unqualified duty to tell the truth.

Kant is wrong? I thought you said you weren't taking sides.

2 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

In effect, you're saying that Kant's system of ethics doesn't account for its real-world consequences, but that's just imposing a consequentialist mindset onto Kant's idealism. In other words, you're thinking like a utilitarian and criticizing Kant for not thinking the same way. That's just a form of question-begging.

It would be, if that had been what I did.

But it hasn't, and I didn't. On re-reading this allegation of yours, I'm noticing that you've been mixing up two things throughout this thread. You are confusing my being a consequentialist with my being an empiricist. Although I happen to be both, you still need to distinguish: Empiricism is about epistemology (positive claims). Consequentialism, by contrast, is about ethics (normative claims). The two are emphatically distinct.

This difference is important for our discussion of Kant: Kant had a problem with normative claims turning on empirical facts. But he never had a problem with positive claims turning on empirical facts. Using empirical data to test positive truth-claims was perfectly fine with him. Hence, if it's factually true that in some situations, moral agents cannot obey both a categorical truth-telling imperative and a categorical life-saving imperative, that's a perfectly good, positive contradiction, causing the Categorical Imperative to rule them out as permissible maxims. If Kant disagrees, he errs in the way he applies the principle he discovered.

For purposes of this thread, I am an empiricist, but not a consequentialist. I make no normative claims based on the consequences of anyone's actions. In particular, I advocate utility-maximizing, not as an end in itself, but as a means of implementing the categorical imperative. The Utilitarians' maxim, "increase happiness, decrease suffering", can be universalized and involves no contradiction. That's all the Categorical Imperative demands of the maxims that moral agents act upon.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

The type of answer only a countryside moron like you would reach for...you probably even assume I don't know what you're talking about don't you Jonny boy?...you would produce more value and less crap if you simply find it in yourself to justify why lying has prove to be an evolutive advantage for mankind...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Any reader who actually is able to properly weight the substance of what as been written about Kant in this thread so far can only laugh with the elaborated nonsense going on...that unfortunately is quite common among a certain genre of would be philosophers...
But suffices to say concerning Kant´s Moral Nietzsche would be on this concern the proper reply to Kant...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Mr Albuquerque: your posts, to the extent that I've had the accidental misfortune of reading them, bring to mind what is habitually said of English shoes: they look like they were made by a craftsman who has had shoes very carefully explained to him but has never actually seen any.

You don't speak English - and cannot write it. You have no concept of mathematical logic, without which philosophy is an elusive concept at best. You have never once in your entire miserable existence as much as looked at the cover of a book by Immanuel Kant - let alone read even a single page of it. Still you persist in posting on this thread. If you can come up with any rational explanation for your behavior, kindly post it; I for one will read it. Thank you.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Again, that's not an empirical consequence, that's a logical consequence.

Tomeydo, tomuhto. Wrong is wrong. If the logical conclusion of some syllogism is empirically wrong, then the logic is either fallacious, or it acts on a false premise such as "this is a unicorn". Either way, the reasoning has a problem.

joefromchicago wrote:

I weary of having to explain this to you over and over.

I, too, would be weary in your position. If you insist on distinguishing tomeydos from tomuhtos, it just comes with the territory.

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@Thomas,

Thomas - there is another explanation, parallel to the perfectly correct one given to you by Joe, posted at the end of the previous page. Please read it.

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@High Seas,

I did, but I'm afraid it doesn't explain anything. Sorry.

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@Thomas,

No, there's no explanation beyond mere description. Nobody understands how the probability amplitude collapses, or why the imperative is absolute; sorry Smile

1 Reply

@High Seas,

Quote:

Mr Albuquerque: your posts, to the extent that I've had the accidental misfortune of reading them, bring to mind what is habitually said of English shoes: they look like they were made by a craftsman who has had shoes very carefully explained to him but has never actually seen any.

1 - Aside the bad taste of your little "brit" comment, you have in fact a poor notion of what explanation really means for one side and for another a high belief upon what people can see...
...as for Kant I have read enough of him to understand what can be criticized in is thinking, no more no less...maybe you did n´t. Kant´s moral is with all its merits nevertheless linear !

Quote:

You have no concept of mathematical logic, without which philosophy is an elusive concept at best.

2 - Mathematical logic ??? he he he interesting redundancy...what other logic is not mathematical ?

Quote:

You don't speak English - and cannot write it.

3 - ...that again...when did you install the Internet at home, hack ? Welcome to the 21 century majority...I can´t write proper English is well true, no merit in denying it, a problem certainly, but at least I can think, which is more then what one can say from your charming "enfant terrible" tea time post...
...and just what is your point aside the high school ranting remarks that you have made ? What is it that you want to debate upon Kant´s Moral that you agree or disagree with ?

4 - ...my dislike with what as been written here was clear, no much substance...instead of any universal categorical imperative for Moral I rather would speak on how systems tend to protect and enclose themselves with certain paradigmatic operative principles, certain sets of rules who may serve their cohesion, their self preservative interest...that kind of abstraction can be applied not only to Ethics but to any other field from Biology to Law School...and that would represent my idea of a 21 century fruitful conversation...now again you are the one who has no idea upon what kind of "shoes" I fit in simply because you have another type of foot...

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@Thomas,

I'm glad I could help you understand Kant.

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@High Seas,

oh, and High Seas, let me just publicly expose the extent of your own stupidity if you don´t mind once this one is particularly amusing and cannot be missed out...

Quote:

...Nobody understands how the probability amplitude collapses, or why the imperative is absolute; sorry...

How is it that you can ask a reason for an Absolute ? I mean how dumb is that ? Or are you to think that an Absolute is relative to something and has to have a reason other then the fact that it is so ???

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

Again, that's not an empirical consequence, that's a logical consequence.

The entire thread can be resumed to this simple immediate conclusion !
Reason cannot conflict itself without destroying its very own nature...
How is it that it took 3 pages to say it ?

In this regard there is no other justification for a lye then to assume that what is asked for, of the truth, is not immediately relevant or primary to be disclosed in relation to something else that has an higher degree order of priority...it can be added then that the Truth can be somewhat temporally postponed but never contradicted given that which demands for it is out of sync with other contextual variables and is asking before time...meaning the extension of the function in which the lye is introduced is not complete for what is asked of it by an higher priority function which suspends the need for immediate disclosure of information period in which the lye is accepted...

Now here´s the difference between Technocrats and Intelligent people...a way of reconciling the undeniable evolutionary advantages of lying even if only in exceptional circumstances with the need for Truth to always emerge at the proper time frame...

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

I'm glad I could help you understand Kant.

So am I. Thanks!

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Above you have to the extent of my ability the right justification, the post was edited...I can say with some confidence, that the issue seams settled...

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Please show me where Kant says that lying, under all circumstances, is incompatible with all variants of the Categorical Imperative.

No problem.

I'm aware that you lost interest years ago, but the lie-to-a-murderer scenario still gives me a Marshal McLuhan moment in reverse. After a blooper like this, how Kant got to teach anything about the Categorical Imperative is totally amazing.

Parse the scenario into Kantian terms. If you lie to a prospective murderer to save a prospective victim, that makes lying your action, but not the maxim on which you act. Rather, the maxim on which you act would be "prevent murder!", or, "protect human lives!", or something like that. It is the maxim on which you act, not your act itself, that the Categorical Imperative exists to vet.

And how does the vetting turn out in this case? Successful, of course. If every human, forced by a universal law, acted to prevent murder, protect human lives, etc, that would be possible to do without contradiction, and easy --- let alone possible! --- for me to reasonably wish for.

Hence, I don't see how Kant can reach the conclusion in his article, that you should rat out the victim by telling the truth to the murderer. The only way I could conceive of him reaching it is by mistaking your action (of lying) for your maxim. This would be a freshman category error, embarrassing enough in a community-college philosophy-101 course. That Kant would make such a trivial mistake seems utterly incongruent with his stature as a philosopher. And yet, that's what he seems to have done here.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Parse the scenario into Kantian terms. If you lie to a prospective murderer to save a prospective victim, that makes lying your action, but not the maxim on which you act. Rather, the maxim on which you act would be "prevent murder!", or, "protect human lives!", or something like that. It is the maxim on which you act, not your act itself, that the Categorical Imperative exists to vet.

"Prevent murder" and "protect human lives" aren't acts, they're motives. The categorical imperative isn't about motives, it's about acts. Kant was very clear about that. You're still trying to turn Kant into a utilitarian.

1 Reply

Understanding Kant

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