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George, your latest piece (#200) - not yet linked from here, but linked from Facebook - is BRILLIANT! Thank you so much for sharing it and the preceding essays with us! When will these and others appear in a book (he asked, hopefully)? :)

REB

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On 2/5/2016 at 3:41 PM, George H. Smith said:

Immanuel Kant and Nazism

Was Kant somehow responsible for the rise of Nazism? Smith explores two points of view on this issue. This essay discusses the views of Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff on Kant.

Ghs

Would you consider Kant the "most liberal" philosopher?

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Some Reflections on the History of Philosophy

Smith explains the views of Kant and Hegel on the history of philosophy, and explores whether moral judgments should be applied to the realm of ideas.

My Libertarianism.org Essay #200 has been posted. It contains a criticism of Rand and Peikoff in regard to their treatment of Kant.

Ghs

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3 hours ago, Samson Corwell said:

Would you consider Kant the "most liberal" philosopher?

No, not at all. Although Kant's moral and political theories are fundamentally individualistic, his theory of the state veers from the classical liberal tradition in some respects.

Ghs

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10 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

George, your latest piece (#200) - not yet linked from here, but linked from Facebook - is BRILLIANT! Thank you so much for sharing it and the preceding essays with us! When will these and others appear in a book (he asked, hopefully)? :)

REB

Thanks again, Roger. For those who don't follow my FB page, here is the reply I posted there.

Wow, Roger, thanks a lot. You are on my short list of people whose opinion has a special significance for me. I'm happy with today's essay. I had more time than I usually do to focus on stylistic considerations, and I am pleased with the style of one paragraph in particular--the one that contains this line  [about Rand]: "This is absurdity sui generis, absurdity elevated to a fine art, absurdity so quirky and outrageous that it could only have come from the mind of a brilliant and original thinker whose self-confidence was off the charts." This is obviously an unusual way of looking at the matter, but I think the point is legitimate. I must have spent 2 hours working on that paragraph alone. I consider it a luxury to be able to spend that much time reworking a handful of lines. In my terminology, careful attention to style can elevate an "article" to an "essay."

 

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My very superficial opinion is that much of philosophy is secular god-seeking out of the natural, living, human dynamic--and that religion is the same but a found, frozen doctrine. That's why "God" is capitalized--a monopoly achieved. The Randian conceit is her ethics would displace Judeo-Christian ethics, but they are too elitist and too little understanding of human psychology. If your out-sized brain unbalances the rest of you, it's possible to imagine removing one philosophy and running in another, but for more normal people it's mostly seductive to the eventually regretful young.

--Brant

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On ‎2‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 7:26 AM, Samson Corwell said:

How so?

Two points come to mind. First, in Kant's version of the social contract, consent is purely hypothetical. If a rational person should have consented to be ruled by a particular government, then his consent is taken for granted, even if he never did actually consent or would never have consented. Second, Kant denied the rights of resistance and revolution even against an unjust government. Those two rights were pillars of the classical liberal tradition, at least in Kant's day.

Ghs

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On the Influence of Ideas

Smith discusses the issue of whether we should hold a philosopher responsible for the beliefs of those followers who agree with him.

My Libertarianism.org Essay #201 has been posted. This piece contains more criticisms of Rand and Peikoff.

Ghs

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The effect of philosophy on human events is quite complex and hard to know, but we can posit that Rand was both right and wrong. (Can't defend her on Kant.) Right qualitatively and wrong quantitavily. That is, at the most basic level philosophy rules all other human disciplines and influences in a person. People, however, don't stop there. There is the role of economics, nature and nurture, psychology, climate, one's brainpower, critical thinking, courage, war, sociology, etc.

--Brant

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On 2/25/2016 at 11:35 AM, George H. Smith said:

Two points come to mind. First, in Kant's version of the social contract, consent is purely hypothetical. If a rational person should have consented to be ruled by a particular government, then his consent is taken for granted, even if he never did actually consent or would never have consented. Second, Kant denied the rights of resistance and revolution even against an unjust government. Those two rights were pillars of the classical liberal tradition, at least in Kant's day.

Ghs

Oh, yeah. I remember that. It was a rather interesting and unique argument for it. Something about being non-universalizable, instead of the usual stuff about social instability, obedience to authority, and so forth. Could you elaborate on his social contract theory and what you mean by consent being hypothetical? I know that his view of it was that the CI morally compelled everyone to set up an "ethical commonwealth". Aside from that, though, would you say that his view of actions, them needing to treat people as ends, is inspiring?

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Ghs, pardon me butting in. I'm afraid I'm developing a reputation for rushing in where angels ...etc. But I "love the truth more", as well.

Please take these as simple impressions I have from dabbling in Kant - and whatever I understood of his I have probably forgotten half!

From all I've read, I certainly don't cater to Kant as being "evil" (or, certainly not deliberately setting out to do evil). My lasting sense of him and his works are as being sincere, well-meaning and of ... 'good intention'. My deep belief is he started from a lofty world view in which man and nature and man and man co-exist in harmony. I think everything following after was his attempt to justify and manifest his prior thought or 'idee fixe'. All told, I see him as a 'noble dreamer' or 'intuitionist' with a grand and lofty plan for humanity. However, in my view, it does not match reality and the reality of man's consciousness. If I may venture this of a genius, I have a notion he was innocently, badly misguided.

More than anything else, one aspect mystifies me. How possibly can Kant's political/rights theory (which on the surface is, I seem to recall, somewhat agreeable to libertarianism and O'ism) mesh with his duty-ethics? They clearly must clash.

"The will is good when when it acts out of duty, not out of inclination".

That psychological and mental conflict of attempting to think dutifully toward all others - unselfishly - must have dire consequences on one's freedom of thought and of will - therefore, as direct effect, on one's freedom to act. Kant's ideal is act not for yourself, but primarily for others - and to be most moral, expect no reward and derive no satisfaction from your efforts.

Something has to give in this contradiction (the "paradoxes" of Kant as scholars name it), and freedom of the individual's actions will have to go in order to maintain and enforce the higher good, "duty". So both any egoist morality (along with its derivative, capitalism) AND individual rights must suffer the same logical end.

But then it seems Kant gave little weight to "consequences". From a scholar, Dr. Jan Garrett: "For Kant, the morally important thing is not the consequences but the way choosers think [feel?] when they make choices". Good intentions, again (and the road to hell? heh).

I am reminded of Prager's take on progressivism: "The Left believe that intention trumps results". This is observably true, and from the above, very 'Kantian'. How much does Kant's thinking, methodology and ethics support the modern Left is the question. Another absorbing question of how much, if at all, the philosopher can be considered culpable for others' actions, you have gone into elsewhere.

Rand as I understand, viewed Kant's major harm, even above his ethics, as undermining and compromising man's consciousness. In there is further work for the scholars (and well above my pay grade).

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11 minutes ago, anthony said:

More than anything else, one aspect mystifies me. How possibly can Kant's political/rights theory (which on the surface is, I seem to recall, somewhat agreeable to libertarianism and O'ism) mesh with his duty-ethics? They clearly must clash.

"The will is good when when it acts out of duty, not out of inclination".

That psychological and mental conflict of attempting to think dutifully toward all others - unselfishly - must have dire consequences on one's freedom of thought and of will - therefore, as direct effect, on one's freedom to act. Kant's ideal is act not for yourself, but primarily for others - and to be most moral, expect no reward and derive no satisfaction from your efforts.

Something has to give in this contradiction (the "paradoxes" of Kant as scholars name it), and freedom of the individual's actions will have to go in order to maintain and enforce the higher good, "duty". So both any egoist morality (along with its derivative, capitalism) AND individual rights must suffer the same logical end.

The duty you describe is not what Kant meant by duty.  " Kant said we should take a given action because it is the rational thing to do, not because it will benefit us or someone else. Kant believed only actions performed from duty have moral worth. There is an obvious similarity to Christian ethics, but "duty" does not mean duty to God or a political authority, but rather to the moral law grounded in the rational nature of humanity" (link).

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18 minutes ago, merjet said:

The duty you describe is not what Kant meant by duty.  " Kant said we should take a given action because it is the rational thing to do, not because it will benefit us or someone else. Kant believed only actions performed from duty have moral worth. There is an obvious similarity to Christian ethics, but "duty" does not mean duty to God or a political authority, but rather to the moral law grounded in the rational nature of humanity" (link).

Duty to a "universal" moral law is still "duty". It is top-down of an identitification of collective "humanity", not of the nature of man's consciousness.

 

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On 4/1/2016 at 11:39 AM, George H. Smith said:

Some Personal Reflections on Ayn Rand

Smith discusses some good and bad influences that Ayn Rand’s ideas had on his own intellectual development.

My Libertarianism.org Essay #203 has been posted.

Ghs

George, thanks again for another terrific essay. Your experiences and pathway regarding all of this are uncomfortably similar to mine. I had occasion to research Kant closely while doing a review (several years ago in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies ) of Peikoff's trashing of him in The DIM Hypothesis, and I found startling affinities between their moral outlooks that the barking dogs of Orthodox Objectivism would have you believe could not possibly exist. A few years ago, Fred Seddon similarly did an exegesis of Kant's views on "belief" vs. "faith." I don't know if he was another closet atheist like Locke (OK, deist), but he sure pulled the rug out from under the Rationalist theist philosophers. (Which is why Moses Mendelssohn called Kant "the All-Destroyer," not because, as Peikoff alludes, he was some sort of Nihilist, the honor of which more properly is attributed to Hume, who woke Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers.")

REB

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2 hours ago, anthony said:

Duty to a "universal" moral law is still "duty". It is top-down of an identitification of collective "humanity", not of the nature of man's consciousness.

 

When it comes to the issue of Kant, Tony doesn't want to understand. He is Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions. Just ignore him. He's willfully refusing to know. Trust me, it's a big waste of time. He'll evade your arguments and evidence, and invent all sorts of irrational strawman to attack based on insane non sequiturs. His mind doesn't work rationally. Seriously, unless you enjoy studying a messed up mind, walk away now, because you're headed for multiple WTF moments.

J

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Kantian ethics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory ascribed to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The theory, developed as a result of Enlightenment rationalism, is based on the view that the only intrinsically good thing is a good will; an action can only be good if its maxim – the principle behind it – is duty to the moral law. Central to Kant's construction of the moral law is the categorical imperative, which acts on all people, regardless of their interests or desires. Kant formulated the categorical imperative in various ways. His principle of universalisability requires that, for an action to be permissible, it must be possible to apply it to all people without a contradiction occurring. His formulation of humanity as an end in itself requires that humans are never treated merely as a means to an end, but always also as ends in themselves. The formulation of autonomy concludes that rational agents are bound to the moral law by their own will, while Kant's concept of the Kingdom of Ends requires that people act as if the principles of their actions establish a law for a hypothetical kingdom. Kant also distinguished between perfect and imperfect duties. A perfect duty, such as the duty not to lie, always holds true; an imperfect duty, such as the duty to give to charity, can be made flexible and applied in particular time and place

 

"...the only intrinsically good thing is a good will". ['Good', to whom or for what: by what standards? Uh, that's why he called it "intrinsic" - you can't insist on 'a valuer' for an 'intrinsic' value.]

"...an action can only be good if its maxim...is duty to the moral law. [Whose law?]

Ah, Kant's law, Kant's standards, delivered to men from his high-minded rationalism!

And, if one can "apply it to all people without a contradiction" i.e., 'universalize' it [impossibly] only then is the action "permissible".

His Categorical Imperative is a clever-looking expansion of the golden rule, I think, and with the same inbuilt subjectivity: me, and she and he, and the other 6 billion - are each their own arbitrary standard of value by their presumed 'good will'. Not to mention the superfluity, since almost everyone implicitly acts "as he would be done by" and privately wishes everybody to act the same way, by universal maxim. And most children have learned early through 'hard knocks', that the manner you treat others rebounds on you.

If all the above were propagated as the reciprocity base for individual rights, it *might* suffice. But as an "ethics"?

Kant was apparently more worried about a person using and abusing others to his/her own ends, than about an individual moral code for one to live by. The selfish good of one's mind and the selfish good of having freedom to act for one's ethical purpose aren't considered, nor the identity of man's consciousness hardly even touched on by Kant, as I've read. The "Hypothetical Imperative"- If you want X, do Y - was bothersome to Kant: it seems he could only forsee utilitarianism as its outcome. So it seems to me he veered away from any form of potential selfishness, to come up with the Cat Imp as its substitute. Not recognising the subjectivism of utilitarianism, nor the existence of an objective egoism, he would.

"...bound to the moral law by their own will" - in practice means a self-imposed duty to the mass of all people, or whoever next happens to come along. The Progressive Left today is "bound to" and defined by Kant's deontological ethics, still (it seems to me).

 

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On April 2, 2016 at 1:34 PM, Jonathan said:

When it comes to the issue of Kant, Tony doesn't want to understand. He is Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions.

J

So, according to you, Rand was mistaken in objecting to a duty ethics?  A duty ethics is just fine? Only someone "Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions" would think that a duty ethics is a bad idea?

Ellen

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1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

So, according to you, Rand was mistaken in objecting to a duty ethics?  A duty ethics is just fine? Only someone "Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions" would think that a duty ethics is a bad idea?

Ellen

No. Try again.

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32 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

No. Try again.

Where is Tony being "Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions" in writing the following?

link

On April 2, 2016 at 0:51 PM, anthony said:

~~~ Duty to a "universal" moral law is still "duty". It is top-down of an identitification of collective "humanity", not of the nature of man's consciousness. ~~~

If you don't think that that statement is reflective of Rand's "mistaken opinions," why did you quote it in charging Tony with being Obedient to Rand and "willfully refusing to know" (as if you could know that someone is doing that).

Ellen

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8 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

So, according to you, Rand was mistaken in objecting to a duty ethics?  A duty ethics is just fine? Only someone "Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions" would think that a duty ethics is a bad idea?

Ellen

I've assumed anyone here would think a proscribed, duty ethics unpalatable. An orderly and civilised society is what he had in his vision I surmize, and for "intent" alone I won't fault him. Very much for his method and his ethics, however, and the ultimate results. I do believe I'm aware of the pitfalls of a layman like myself trying to over-simplify Kant, but what I guess in his ethics looks like him trying to switch away from traditional religious commandments to a secular one, while not losing the tone or metaphysics. Presenting something suitably familar for the newly ex-religious (i.e. the secular left) to be attractive.

(I find this exchange quite funny Ellen, considering I would have reacted disgustedly against Kant's ethics some years before reading Rand, if I'd known of them. At the time I had a distinct anti-authoritarian 'anarchist' streak (in a sort of 'sense of life', preconceptual way). The capitalist/individualist ideas of 'CUI', the first I read, posed a radically original option).

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15 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Where is Tony being "Obedient to Rand and her mistaken opinions" in writing the following?

link

On April 2, 2016 at 0:51 PM, anthony said:

~~~ Duty to a "universal" moral law is still "duty". It is top-down of an identitification of collective "humanity", not of the nature of man's consciousness. ~~~

If you don't think that that statement is reflective of Rand's "mistaken opinions," why did you quote it in charging Tony with being Obedient to Rand and "willfully refusing to know" (as if you could know that someone is doing that).

Ellen

Try again.

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