My Cato Essays

[Brant Gaede]

Rand was not justified in stating her opinion of Kant for several reasons. To argue for her position--whatever anyone is doing here--is to join her in her ignorance, which I guess is binding except she didn't argue it; she just stated it. Mindlessly following her on this is being obedient to her ignorance as she was to her own ignorance for the sake of her hard core absolutism, which, with her heavy Russian accent, powered her way through her deductive expositions. If you agree with Rand on Kant even if you can show her to be correct, she never showed herself to be correct. So if you celebrate her for being correct you are subordinating yourself to her as a follower. She despised followers while wanting agreements, especially from accomplished people of her own age and status. Her followers tended to be a generation or more younger.

Like Rand I too am no authority on Kant. Unlike Rand, I don't claim any authority. I am an authority on dogmatism and Rand carried around a lot of dogmatism. Rand over-valued philosophy (so she over-valued her negative view on Kant [if Kant goes down she goes up and by her own hand; if Aristotle goes up she goes up (with some justification I think)]) just as von Mises over-valued economics and a scientist over-values science through each individual perspective. My own brother over-values anthropology. You have to be a generalist to balance out all these such things and appreciate others for their true expertise in spite of all the accompanying bullshit they may feel good about putting up on the table.

(There's a great way to education by examining ignorance claiming knowledge.)

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

[Relevant to this discussion of Kant's ethics is the following excerpt from my review of Leonard Peikoff's DIM Manifesto, which appeared in 2013 in Vol. 13, No. 2 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.]

Rand's #1 apostle here on earth, Leonard Peikoff, takes care in his most recent book, The DIM Manifesto, to contrast Kant’s ethical views with those of Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle “advised the individual to seek his own personal happiness in this world by the active exercise of his rational faculty” (Peikoff 2012b, 32). While Plato and Kant both differ from Aristotle in that they favor sacrifice and renunciation, Plato embraced this as a means to fulfillment and salvation, while “for Kant, they are a hatchet” (38). Kant’s ethics, in Peikoff's eyes, is all about the duty to “sacrifice [one’s] values, all of them, because they are [one’s] values, and to not do it for any beneficiary, such as God or society, but as an end in itself ” (37).

From this, you would conclude that the last thing Kant wants to endorse is your living for your own happiness. Quoting Kant’s frequently misinterpreted statement in epistemology, “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith,” Peikoff adds that, in ethics, “Kant also found it necessary to deny happiness, in order to make room for duty,” citing this as part of “Kant’s attack on reason, this world, and man’s happiness” (1982, 25).

And yet, Kant did not attack happiness any more than he attacked knowledge. His thrust in epistemology was to limit knowledge to a basis in experience,and to insist that theoretical reason could not produce either a proof or a disproof of free will, the existence of God, and so on, which are not found in our experience. These latter things can only be believed in, not known. In other words, Kant was denying that knowledge could be had of trans-experiential things , in order to make it clear that they had to be taken on faith (or not)—and that theoretical reason and knowledge had nothing to do with them.

So, Kant was not denying knowledge in toto, just denying the propriety of its trying to do what (he maintained) it, in fact, could not do. (See Seddon 2005, 189-202.) Similarly, he was not denying happiness in toto either, just denying the propriety of its trying to be what it, in fact, should not be—namely, that by which a man “is moved to his duty,” that is, “the real motivation of [one’s] acting virtuously” ([1780] 1952, 366). There is ample evidence that this is Kant’s view—and a strikingly familiar sounding argument for why happiness should not be one’s motivation in moral behavior.

Here is Kant on moral virtue and happiness:

[V]irtue (as worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of all that can appear to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit of happiness, and is therefore the supreme good. But it does not follow that it is the whole and perfect good as the object of the desires of rational finite beings; for this requires happiness also. . . . [V]irtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum bonum [greatest good or ultimate value] in a person. . . . When two elements are necessarily united in one concept, they must be connected as reason and consequence. . . . [H]appiness and morality are two specifically distinct elements of the summum bonum and, therefore, their combination cannot be analytically cognized (as if the man that seeks his own happiness should find by mere analysis of his conception that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if the man that follows virtue should in the consciousness of such conduct find that he is already happy ipso facto), but must be a synthesis of concepts. ([1785] 1952, 338–40; emphasis in original)

Compare that with Rand:

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues>. . . . Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. (1961, 32; emphasis added)

However, says Kant, “[H]appiness, while it is pleasant to the possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presupposes morally right behavior as its condition” ([1785] 1952, 339). Also, says Kant,

If we deviate from [the principle of tracing in metaphysics the first principles of ethics] and begin from pathological [emotional], or purely sensitive, or even moral feeling (from what is subjectively practical instead of what is objective), that is from the matter of the will, the end, not from its form that is the law, in order from thence to determine duties; then, certainly, there are no metaphysical elements of ethics, for feeling by whatever it may be excited is always physical. . . . The pleasure, namely, which must precede the obedience to the law in order that one may act according to the law is pathological, and the process follows the physicalorder of nature; that which must be preceded by the law in order that it may be felt is in the moral order. If this distinction is not observed; if eudaemonism (the principle of happiness) is adopted as the principle instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of freedom of the inner legislation [i.e., choosing to act according to moral principle]), the consequence is the euthanasia (quiet death) of all morality. (365–66; emphasis in original)

[Kant also famously uses the categorical imperative as the basis for an argument against making desire the motivation for one’s moral action. He points out ([1785] 1952) that any attempt to make “the maxim by which everyone makes [the desire of happiness] determine his will” results not in everything being harmonious, but instead in “the greatest opposition and the complete destruction of the maxim itself and its purpose.” He summarizes, “f I say that my will is subject to a practical law, I cannot adduce my inclination . . . as a principle of determination fitted to be a universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a universal legislation that, if put in the form of a universal law, it would destroy itself ” (301).]

Again, from Kant:

[A]lthough the notion of happiness is in every case the foundation of practical relation of the objects to the desires, yet it is only a general name for the subjective determining principles,nothing specifically. . . . [P]ractical precepts founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle of the desire is based on the feeling of pleasure and pain, which can never be supposed to be universally directed to the same objects. . . . It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, but only counsels for the service of our desires, than to raise merely subjective principles to the rank of practical laws, which have objective necessity. (300; emphasis in original)

Compare again to Rand:

[T]he relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed It is only by accepting "man's life" as one's primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidelines. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take “whatever makes one happy” as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims. . . This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism—in any variant of ethical hedonism, personal or social, individual or collective. To declare as the ethical hedonists do, that “the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure” is to declare that “the proper value is whatever you happen to value”—which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication, an act which merely proclaims the futility of ethics and invites all men to play it deuces wild. (1961, 32–33; emphasis added, original emphasis deleted)

Yet again we see a substantial similarity between Kant’s way of thinking and Rand’s. Insisting that people should act according to moral principle rather than according to desire certainly doesn’t sound nihilistic and disintegrative. If it were, Rand would be tarred by the same brush!

As for Kant’s supposed fostering of altruism by his advocacy of doing one’s duty and sacrificing one’s values because they are one’s values, of “sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, as an end in itself” (Peikoff 1982, 82), again this is a distortion of Kant’s views. Doing one’s duty, for Kant, does not require setting aside one’s values, but merely one’s personal inclinations and desires, and then acting according to moral principle. One of his chief illustrations of this point is quite revealing, particularly in comparison to Rand’s “ethics of emergencies”:

To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations, e.g. the inclination to honor, which, if happily directed to which is in fact of public utility and accordant with duty and consequently honorable, deserves praise and encouragement, but not esteem. For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. Put the case that the mind of that philanthropist were clouded by sorrow of his own, extinguishing all sympathy with the lot of others, and that, while he still has the power to benefit others in distress, he is not touched by their trouble because he is absorbed with his own; and now suppose that he tears himself out of this dead insensibility and performs the action without any inclination to it, but simply from duty, then first has his action its genuine moral worth. (Kant [1785] 1952, 258; emphasis in original)

Now, it is true that Rand does not advocate being kind to others as a moral duty. Helping others, for Rand, is a highly conditional, contextual matter, tied firmly to one's self-interest, values, and happiness, and she discusses it at length, expressing principles such as the following: "If one's friend is in trouble, one should act to help him by whatever nonsacrificial means are appropriate" (Rand 1963, 53; emphasis in original). It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one's power. For instance, a man who values human life and is caught in a shipwreck, should help to save his fellow passengers (though not at the expense of his own life) (55; emphasis in original).

But observe that although these are conditional imperatives, they are imperatives, that is, moral principles. They are what is morally right for one to do, given certain conditions. And they are so not because one will get a heroic or warm-and-fuzzy feeling out of doing so—though one indeed may get such a feeling or other—but because they are virtuous acts. Specifically, Rand says, they are acts of integrity , which she defines as "loyalty to one's convictions and values...the policy of acting in accordance with one's values, of expressing, upholding and translating them into practical reality" (52-53). This principle even extends to strangers, Rand says, based on "[t]he generalized respect and good will which one should grant to a human being in the name of the potential value he represents—until and unless he forfeits it" (1963, 53). (See also Nathaniel Branden 1962, 27-28.) Such states of happiness that result from virtuous action, however, are the purpose of one's virtuous action, not a proper guide in carrying out such action.

Kant, by contrast, observed that happiness is not an ultimate moral purpose but a crucial instrumental value, and thus that "secur[ing] one's own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for discontent wth one's condition, under a pressure of many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty" ([1785], 1952, 258; emphasis in original). In other words, for Kant, happiness, while a moral necessity, is not an end in itself, but the means to the end of doing one's duty in general. Nonetheless, Kant too was concerned that, in Rand's words, cause and effect not be reversed, and happiness not be allowed to function as the standard guiding one[s moral actions. Unlike Rand, he had not the standard of "man's life" as the guide to proper moral behavior, but the impersonal "categorical imperative." (See also Rand 1970, 114-22.)

Rand once said that "on every fundamental issue, Kant's philosophy is the exact opposite of Objectivism" (1971, 4). This is simply not true. As Seddon has demonstrated (2003, 63-64), one fundamental issue on which Kant and Rand agree is the fact that consciousness has an identity; and there are others. What is most startling and tragic about Kant's philosophical views in relation to Objectivism, however, is not seeing how grossly Rand and Peikoff have distorted the truth about his views and how vehemently and unjustly they have portrayed him as a mind-destroying, man-destroying nihilist. Instead, it is seeing how much like Objectivism some of a thinker's basic ideas can be and still now allow his conclusions to climb out of the black hole of the Humean nihilistic premises he has also accepted. this is not to excuse Kant, by any means—just to underscore yet again Rand's astute understanding of how collaboration with irrationality and evil can undercut a well-intentioned person and lead to disastrous consequences.

The bottom line, however, is this: the decades-long Objectivist condemnation of Kant, the branding of him by the philosophy's founder as "the most evil man in mankind's history" (see rand 1971, 3), and Peikoff's equating of Kant with the Anti-Integration/Nihilist pole and his indictment of Kant's philosophy as a "systematic negation of philosophy" are overripe for a careful examination and discussion.

References

Branden, Nathaniel. 1962. Benevolence vs. altruism. In Rand and Branden 1962-65, 27–28.

Kant, Immanuel. [1780] 1952.  Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, with a Note on Conscience. Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. Volume 42, Kant, Great Books of the Western World. Edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

_____. [1785] 1952. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. Volume 42, Kant, Great Books of the Western World. Edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Peikoff, Leonard. 1982. The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America. New York: Stein & Day.

_____. 2012. The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out.  New York: New American Library.

Rand, Ayn. 1961. The Objectivist ethics. In Rand 1964, 13-39.

_____. 1964. The anatomy of compromise. In Rand 1967, 144-49.

_____. 1964. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. New York: New American Library.

_____. 1967. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New York: New American Library.

_____. 1970. Causality versus duty. In Rand 1982, 114-22.

_____. 1971. Brief Summary. The Objectivist  10, no. 9 (September): 1-4.

_____. 1982. Philosophy: Who Needs It. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. 

Seddon, Fred. 2003. Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.

_____. 2005. Kant on faith. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 7, no. 1 (Fall): 189-202.

[merjet]

Also worth mention about Kant is his division between morality and prudence.

 

Quote

 Kant did not regard natural inclination or self-interest as immoral, but rather amoral. (Natural inclinations and desires, which may have subconscious origins, are also arational.) It was part of prudence, but prudence wasn't part of ethics, either. He was not an altruist in the manner of Comte, for anybody's interest, not only self interest, was pushed out of his ethical theory.

Link.

Quote

 Rules for promoting happiness (what Kant calls Imperatives of Prudence) cannot be completely certain, and therefore do not really command (or determine) the will. Happiness is an indeterminate idea which means that it is impossible for rules for happ iness to have the universal and necessary character of a true moral principle. (P.28) Happiness is an empirical goal of everyone. In that sense Aristotle was correct in saying that everyone desires happiness. But according to Kant, "Empirical principles are wholly unsuited to serve as the foundation for moral laws.' (P.46) Because such principles are based on the contingent facts of human nature and the contingent circumstances in which people find themselves, such empirical principles are at best generally true, but they are not necessary truths.

Link.

[Jonathan]

9 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

As for Kant’s supposed fostering of altruism by his advocacy of doing one’s duty and sacrificing one’s values because they are one’s values, of “sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, as an end in itself” (Peikoff 1982, 82), again this is a distortion of Kant’s views. Doing one’s duty, for Kant, does not require setting aside one’s values, but merely one’s personal inclinations and desires, and then acting according to moral principle.

 

Yeah, I've suggested to Objectivists a few times that they need to get over their (and Rand's and Peikoff's) wrongheaded interpretation of "duty" when reading Kant by replacing it with the word "principle."

Excellent post, Roger.

J

[George H. Smith]

Roger,

I just read your excellent and informative discussion of Kant from JARS, just an hour or so after submitting my latest L.org essay, to be posted later today. Titled "A Few Kind Words about the Most Evil Man in Mankind's History," it is similar to your earlier attempt to correct some of the errors about Kant perpetrated by Rand, Peikoff, and other Objectivists; and we focus on some of the same issues. I guess it really is true that great minds think alike. 8-)

Ghs

 

[George H. Smith]

A Few Kind Words about the Most Evil Man in Mankind's History.

Smith explains some fundamental features of Immanuel Kant’s moral and political theory.

My Libertarianism.org Essay #204 has been posted.

Ghs

[anthony]

Ghs, after a quote by Kant in your essay, I think you accurately sum it up:

"In other words, the Categorical Imperative is a formal principle of universalizability, a fundamental test that normative maxims and principles must first pass before they can qualify as rationally justifiable. (When Kant spoke of a moral *law*, he was drawing an analogy between the Categorical Imperative and the physical laws of nature. Just as there are no exceptions to the physical laws of nature, so there *should* be no exception to this fundamental law of morality)".

(Interesting, Kant's "test" of a maxim. I applied that word in another debate to the Golden Rule, with which I find a connection).

Anyway, what you get me recalling is that another 'Sublimist', Schopenhauer, who after outlining examples of sublime experiences which increase in intensity, concluded with men attaining "oneness with Nature". Similarly, here Kant draws the "no exception" rule, i.e.,of the physical laws equated with the law of morality.

However. Is man "one" with nature? Can he be? (Apart from the obvious, of course). Does he not have to learn to be man? Our consciousness, surely, is what sets man forever apart from nature, while being its product.

From the quote by Kant: "But to know whether this principle is also objectively valid, your reason must subject it to the test of conceiving yourself as giving universal law, then it qualifies as objectively valid".

"Reason"? "Objectively valid"? "Universal law"? Certainly it appears that Kant gives as *the standard of life* EACH man's life - in contrast to the abstraction, "man's life" in Objectivist ethics. Rather, in my opinion, that mental "test" has to be subjective, by nature - as is imagining ("conceiving yourself") the universal application of it, too.

You quote RJ Sullivan: "Kant calls this formula the "supreme principle of morality" because it obligates us to recognize and respect the right and obligation of every other person to choose and to act autonomously".

Very good, and as confirmation of my thought that as a grounding for individual rights, Kant isn't all wrong; his formulation of his ethics is aimed to lead to this point - after the fact. It all strengthens my notion that Kant began with a vision of humanity getting along harmoniously, and set about justifying how to reverse engineer it, by invoking nature, universality, the supreme principle, etc.  While, from the O'ist pov (roughly) Rand set about it starting with man's consciousness and individual man firmly fixed in her sights, finally culminating with individual rights as the essential means to achieve his "freedom from his brothers". Top down versus bottom up, in approach and directions - to be very simplistic. And consequently, like two ships that pass in the night, it would be astonishing if there were no parallels between Kant and Rand. (As Roger points out in his also most educational, thought-provoking essay).

[Roger Bissell]

George, I decided yesterday, based on my preliminary readings in Kant's ethics and aesthetics, that it would be a very good idea to see what correct arguments Kant may have made in his Critique of Pure Reason. The barking dogs of Objectivist Orthodoxy have, for most of my adult life, tried to discourage close examination of this supposedly genius-level, great philosopher who was, nevertheless, the most evil man in history (according to St. Ayn). Sure, we are encouraged to refer to the passages quoted (whether or not out of context) to verify that they are quoting Kant accurately in regard to his (purported) errors - but not to delve deeply into his metaphysics and epistemology to see what he might have gotten right. And by this, I don't just mean what correct conclusion he came to, but what really amazing and correct arguments he made. Do such exist? Or was he just a spider busy spinning daydreams?

I already have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to find, judging from some of the commentaries I've read and a look at the related Kant passages. But I'll dig in, take notes, try to put it in simple terms and see just how nihilistic or rationalistic or evil or whatever his premises and arguments really are. I'm not aiming this at publication or even posting here, necessarily. I'm just doing it for myself, as an act of justice to the Kant and an act of intellectual honesty and defiance of those who have so robotically parroted Rand's second- and third-hand-based denunciations and condemnations of the man. If, in the final analysis, I find that he deserves being relegated to the lowest rung of hell, I'll make that judgment and move on. If, on the other hand, I find that, despite his errors, he has done some truly incredible, valid philosophizing, I will share that in some fashion, at some time, TBA.

Anyway, thanks again for your most recent essay and for all your good work. Keep it up! 

REB

[Roger Bissell]

7 hours ago, George H. Smith said:

I guess it really is true that great minds think alike. 8-)

I'm sure you're right, George. At least, I know that when I grow up, I want to be like you! 

REB

[Ellen Stuttle]

On April 4, 2016 at 7:19 AM, Jonathan said:

Try again.

I've queried the logical possibility.  I'm not going to try to guess what illogical leap(s) you're making.

Ellen

PS: Tony, I did know a little about Kant's ethics before reading Rand.  I reacted with a shudder to the duty mentality. I still react the same emotionally.  Plus, today, having the advantage of considerable hindsight knowledge which I didn't have at 18, I think that Kant was not merely mistaken in fundamentals but disastrously so because of the major influence his views have had on subsequent thinkers in many areas.

[anthony]

2 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

 

Ellen

PS: Tony, I did know a little about Kant's ethics before reading Rand.  I reacted with a shudder to the duty mentality. I still react the same emotionally.  Plus, today, having the advantage of considerable hindsight knowledge which I didn't have at 18, I think that Kant was not merely mistaken in fundamentals but disastrously so because of the major influence his views have had on subsequent thinkers in many areas.

ha. Yes, quite, Ellen.

In short, it is highly probable *somebody* has influenced modern thinking for the worse, and for a certainty, it wasn't Rand and Objectivism! Even its detractors will admit that O'ism hasn't had time and exposure to disseminate widely enough yet.

So whose influence was it then, I wonder? All I know for sure so far, is the effects of the influence, and with many years of paying close attention to differing people from all over, I've been more clearly seeing a distinct and linked thinking-behaviour-pattern, common to a large proportion of people and still growing. I don't have to be an expert thinker or academic myself, to well know when I hear and see wrongful thought and action, ultimately harmful to a person himself as well as others.

It's fine getting older in some ways, you may agree. With that "considerable hindsight", 'dots' connect and once confusing patterns fall into place.

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

In short, it is highly probable *somebody* has influenced modern thinking for the worse, and for a certainty, it wasn't Rand and Objectivism! Even its detractors will admit that O'ism hasn't had time and exposure to disseminate widely enough yet.

The supposition is it must have been prior thinking as opposed to prior events.

It's the supposition of the philosophical elite feeding on itself.

An ironic tautology.

As for Objectivism, it's your premise it's ready to go--out of the box. Just take it out, wind it up and put it down.

[Jonathan]

6 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

I've queried the logical possibility.  I'm not going to try to guess what illogical leap(s) you're making.

Ellen

Try again. Above and beyond the electron-chase level. Think "bigger picture." Try to look beyond the immediate. Context. Long, long history. We're not new arrivals here. Last week happened. Last month and last year did as well. We didn't just meet Tony.

J

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The supposition is it must have been prior thinking as opposed to prior events.

It's the supposition of the philosophical elite feeding on itself.

An ironic tautology.

As for Objectivism, it's your premise it's ready to go--out of the box. Just take it out, wind it up and put it down.

"Must" is a little too categorical for me, Brant. There is less of my supposition, and more of my informed hypothesis about causes and effects I have seen at work. Do "prior events" bring about a change in thinking, yes. Does the change in thinking cause further events, yes again. All the way back, on an inconceivable scale. What came first is irrelevant, what matters is knowing things happen and get changed by thought and its congruent action. In one's life, as in many.

Several other schools of philosophy before now have seeped into the minds, consciously and not very,  of billions of people through many ways and means, and with social media, the process has been picking up speed. Stay on the bus, Gus!! ;)

[merjet]

On 4/3/2016 at 3:58 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

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

I believe Jonathan refers to Tony's first rendering of Kant's ethical doctrine.

On 4/2/2016 at 0:12 PM, 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.

 

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

"Must" is a little too categorical for me, Brant. There is less of my supposition, and more of my informed hypothesis about causes and effects I have seen at work. Do "prior events" bring about a change in thinking, yes. Does the change in thinking cause further events, yes again. All the way back, on an inconceivable scale. What came first is irrelevant, what matters is knowing things happen and get changed by thought and its congruent action. In one's life, as in many.

Several other schools of philosophy before now have seeped into the minds, consciously and not very,  of billions of people through many ways and means, and with social media, the process has been picking up speed. Stay on the bus, Gus!! ;)

I don't think you are contradicting me. But why do you think you are? I'm referring, of course, to that which you addressed.

You are next to impossible to engage--at least for me--as you cover conversations with a molasses of words.

--Brant

[anthony]

15 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

 

 I think that Kant was not merely mistaken in fundamentals but disastrously so because of the major influence his views have had on subsequent thinkers in many areas.

Ellen, it could well be that Kant's use of "duty" is an unfortunate misnomer. At its most superficial though, it is all that most people remember, to then carry out in practice - 'dutifully', to some authority. But the fundamentals you mention still remain like a pebble in a shoe. It is all very well finding paralleIs and intersections between Kant and Rand, but it's on the fundamentals the differences really count. After all, (e.g.) man's happiness can't be avoided by a serious philosopher (although Comte tried hard...)

For the record, I repeat, I don't caricature Kant as the most -deliberately- evil man in history. 

I don't remember Rand ever using "duty" with respect to reality and reason, but we know that in a sense this is true. In a nutshell, I'd put it that one's only 'duty' is adherence to reality and ones' primary loyalty is to one's mind (values, knowledge, virtues).

One's principles are to be derived from reality by each person. Not from subjective "inclinations" (to be clearly distinguished from *objective* and selfish needs and wants - which I haven't -yet - seen Kant doing). Following that, the most encompassing virtue (imo) is integrity. What we practice is identical to what we preach (to ourselves), with utmost consistency, otherwise - why bother? Integrity is a selfish and self-serving necessity for the good and longevity of one's values and one's thriving, not for the sake of others' approval and esteem.

So, we choose it, like all the other virtues, and willingly choose to stay faithful to it, selfishly and rationally.

Kant it seems, skirted the purely selfish need for this "duty" and belabored consistency to a subjectively-created (to my mind) "moral law" as his categorical imperative, ambivalently referring to the good of other people also. (As secondary importance, it's certain that others will benefit from one's applied virtues). In the unambivalent Objectivist ethics conversely, integrity is but one principle one derives from reality and the nature of consciousness. Any other "duty" can go hang, as far as I see it.

The effects on "subsequent thinkers in many areas" is another huge subject on its own.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

I don't think you are contradicting me. But why do you think you are? I'm referring, of course, to that which you addressed.

You are next to impossible to engage--at least for me--as you cover conversations with a molasses of words.

--Brant

Ah, the word molasses. Yes, I don't have the art of the one-liner. One thing leads to another and I get carried away making myself clear.

Sorry if you were in agreement with me, for some reason I am not used to that.

[BaalChatzaf]

36 minutes ago, anthony said:

Ellen, it could well be that Kant's use of "duty" is an unfortunate misnomer. At its most superficial though, it is all that most people remember, to then carry out in practice - 'dutifully', to some authority. But the fundamentals you mention still remain like a pebble in a shoe. It is all very well finding paralleIs and intersections between Kant and Rand, but it's on the fundamentals the differences really count. After all, (e.g.) man's happiness can't be avoided by a serious philosopher (although Comte tried hard...)

For the record, I repeat, I don't caricature Kant as the most -deliberately- evil man in history. 

I don't remember Rand ever using "duty" with respect to reality and reason, but we know that in a sense this is true. In a nutshell, I'd put it that one's only 'duty' is adherence to reality and ones' primary loyalty is to one's mind (values, knowledge, virtues).

One's principles are to be derived from reality by each person. Not from subjective "inclinations" (to be clearly distinguished from *objective* and selfish needs and wants - which I haven't -yet - seen Kant doing). Following that, the most encompassing virtue (imo) is integrity. What we practice is identical to what we preach (to ourselves), without exception - otherwise, why bother? Integrity is a selfish and self-serving necessity for the good and longevity of one's values and one's thriving, not for the sake of others' approval.

So, we choose it, like all the other virtues, and choose to stay faithful to it, selfishly and rationally.

Kant it seems, skirted the purely selfish need for this "duty" and belabored consistency to a subjectively-created (to my mind) "moral law" as his categorical imperative, ambivalently referring to the good of other people also. (As secondary importance, certainly others will benefit from one's applied virtues). In the unambivalent Objectivist ethics conversely, integrity is but one principle one derives from reality and the nature of consciousness. Any other "duty" can go hang, as far as I see it.

The effects on "subsequent thinkers in many areas" is another huge subject on its own.

Kant's  categorical imperative  demanded that a moral (or ethical) principle be -general and universal-,  not tied to anyone's particular opinion or situation.  

Rand's ethical views were general and universal also. 

[anthony]

1 minute ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Kant's  categorical imperative  demanded that a moral (or ethical) principle be -general and universal-,  not tied to anyone's particular opinion or situation.  

Rand's ethical views were general and universal also. 

Rand's were general and universal? Do you think so? Not instead, individual and objective?

As we were discussing with the Golden Rule, can you trust anyone (besides yourself) to extrapolate 'universally' to everybody else his/her personal ethics?

[BaalChatzaf]

Just now, anthony said:

Rand's were general and universal? Do you think so? Not instead, individual and objective?

As we were discussing with the Golden Rule, can you trust anyone (besides yourself) to extrapolate 'universally' to everybody else his/her personal ethics?

Rand talked about Man's Nature and Man's Functioning.  Is that general enough for you?

[anthony]

24 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Rand talked about Man's Nature and Man's Functioning.  Is that general enough for you?

Hardly. But anyway, you are equivocating on "universal".

Kant's complete use is "universalizability", projecting from one to all (as you prefer to do with the Golden Rule).

Rand's metaphysics of man is from all to one.

Broadly.

[BaalChatzaf]

10 hours ago, anthony said:

Hardly. But anyway, you are equivocating on "universal".

Kant's complete use is "universalizability", projecting from one to all (as you prefer to do with the Golden Rule).

Rand's metaphysics of man is from all to one.

Broadly.

Each and every ONE.  Rand's principles are general.  That apply to all.

[anthony]

On 2016/04/10 at 3:34 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Each and every ONE.  Rand's principles are general.  That apply to all.

Rather, Rand's *axioms* are *specific*. (Existence and consciousness). Consciousness as an existent also has a specific nature, and being definitive of man, is self-evidently applicable to "each and every one".

The universalized projection of one's own possibly arbitrary "moral law" (even as a test for it) onto a vague 'other men', is rooted in primacy of consciousness and can only be subjective. "Man's life" is the objective standard, not one's personal standards - or those of others.

[George H. Smith]

Immanuel Kant and the Natural Law Tradition

Smith discusses Kant’s attempt to justify objective moral principles and his views on when the use of coercion is morally proper.

My Libertarian.org Essay #205 has been posted.

Ghs