Discussing the "original" meaning of the word discursion or whatever is a pretty much pointless aside. I meant that you were mistaken to say that ultimately a Kantian has to say that he or she just "feels in my bones" that "the Moral Law" applies in some way to something. Gut reactions aren't how that law applies in our judgment.

neither/nor wrote:
But, as I noted previously, one cannot demonstrate it is an inherent manifestaion of the Moral Law. No one is literally obligated to respect or not respect another's right to vote. Although, sure, to speculate that "sometimes" we ought to expand it is reasonable. But that's a far cry from saying what the duty of the governors and the governed with respect to voting IS.

It's just to say that their duty is sometimes to expand it, right?

No one is suggesting you shouldn't be. But I do suggest you might be, well, confused regarding where rational discourse ends and rationalizing begins. We all are. We wish to know what we ought and ought not do. Period. We yearn psychologically for value judgments we can anchor "I" in. When we cannot devise formal arguments that clearly demonstrate this we are forced to take that necessary leap. Some to God. Some to Kant.

Or to myself, since that's the heart of the matter in the end. But anyway, I don't think that rationalization is such a problem as it might be taken to be by others. People often say, "I know [insert other person's name] better than that person knows him- or herself." Really? How? Unless at some point that person was able to disclose the contents of his or her thoughts to you—in which case he or she would also be aware of his or her own inner self—you'd never know what those contents were. Who am I to say that another person's beliefs are just wishful thinking? (Okay, we've got some authority to do this, but not imperiously.)

But when discussing the myriad existential vagaries of "freedom", the nearly infinite exigencies of "humankind" are considerably vaguer still. It would seem, therefore, when transcending the phenomenal we are all the more obligated to come to grips with the "mind of man" itself. How else can we begin to nail down the "universial" in, say, "the universal rights and responsibilties of man".

But if there is no such thing as humankind as a discrete species, I don't see how phrases like "the universal rights and responsibilities of man" solidly mean anything. It would be much better to rewrite the phrase as "the rights and responsibilities of everyone who can understand the language being spoken in right now, or some language into which this can be translated."

I just specualte this is of far less concern or relevance if the discussion revolves around gravity or weather phenomena or rock layers. When it revolves around human moral obligation though it is profoundly pertinent.

Some counterpoints:

The principles of evidence you accept regarding one set of beliefs will have some relationship with the principles you accept for others.

During, say, a murder trial, the parties involved, despite the empirical nature of the facts in question, can become very heated and then emotion can cloud their judgment.

Debating whether the human mind is a blank slate, predisposed to violence and rape, etc. is all empirical/factual debate. But it regardless can be very controversial. Or consider the following: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_Cantor's_theory The article says this debate about a topic in pure mathematics was seriously hostile.

If moral and non-moral questions are both asked in the same existential circumstances, then either those circumstances undermine the objectivity of both kinds of answers to those questions or they don't. If they don't, well, moral inquiry isn't intrinsically more complex than empirical inquiry (once again, "Should I get an abortion?" has only 4 concepts in it). So again, unless you think concepts of emotions are central to ethical concepts, I don't see how emotional pressure is a central factor in our using those concepts (any more central, anyway, than in science or math).

You want to focus on the "autonomy" of a mind that has been in and out of other minds all its life.

Well, it's like taking a graph of a parabola and trying to figure out what function generated it (given inputs). "Dasein" or whatever is the complete external set of those inputs re: our everyday actions, but we also have an internal functional structure separate from "Dasein," capable of being apprehended on its own (although maybe only, like Kant says in the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, after "long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating" our consciousness of our essential functionality from our consciousness of "Dasein").

That's like saying there is not a lot of distance between a particular lie and lying per se.

I don't think so, and I don't see how, either.

And what exactly does it mean to tell Mary to be philosophical about a problem you know little or nothing about situated squarely in your own shoes?

I just say, "Be philosophical," or something. "Try to make all your beliefs and intentions consistent," maybe. "Consider this..." and list some things I think might be important to the matter. Now my friends might often ask me for advice: are you saying it's illicit for me to offer any just because I'm not the one dealing squarely with their problems?

Indeed. But my point is that the futility of concocting a "general law" to deal with abortion pales next to the futility of concocting a "general morality" to deal with it.

Okay, but that doesn't imply that there is no particular objective moral reality for us to live in.

neither/nor wrote:
But who is the "you" drawing up the specs---a mere mortal?

Yep. Me and everyone else involved.

And from what transcendental source is the blueprint drawn---The cosmos? God? The "mind of man"? This is all profoundly---abstract.

The blueprint is drawn however we decide to draw it. Our free will sets the only limits on what we draw.

What "rules" would the blueprint start with here? Suppose we are considering the use of animals in medical experiments aimed at saving human lives. The representative from PETA is up at the podium reacting to the proposals of a corporate hack defending the widespread use of animals in such experiments... What will the general rules be after these two debate them?! Debating them with "you", the guy/gal planning this new civilzation.

It would start with whatever we decided to start it with. Now literally, the idea of the blueprint is metaphorical, so the literal inability of animals to draw doesn't tell against their ability to contribute to whatever the actual process corresponding to the drawing is.

But anyway, the rules after the debate would be whatever they would be, just like legislation passed by Congress or whatever. Since, prior to that legislation, there's no objective moral fact deciding the cases that fall under these rules, what's morally correct depends on whatever the outcome of the congressional debate is.

Discussing the "original" meaning of the word discursion or whatever is a pretty much pointless aside. I meant that you were mistaken to say that ultimately a Kantian has to say that he or she just "feels in my bones" that "the Moral Law" applies in some way to something. Gut reactions aren't how that law applies in our judgment.

When it comes to lining up words used in discussions like this one, "pointless" becomes just another one. If you know what I mean. In any event, it's my job to teach you. ; o )

It's just to say that their duty is sometimes to expand [the vote], right?

Yes, that and to shrink it. It depends on one's chosen political narrative. For example, many think it is dangerous to expand the vote to include folks who are not sophisticated enough to wield it intelligently. Democracy, they will insist, must be kept as far removed from the rabble...the masses...as possible. And there are still Platonists who embrace philosopher-kings. You don't vote for them.

Are their political values irrational, non-rational? How would we know?

Voting is an adjunct of democracy. Democracy is an adjunct of nihilism. I know that might seem preposterous but I have explained previously why it is not.

....I don't think that rationalization is such a problem as it might be taken to be by others.

We rationalize largely because we are not able to invent or to discover an optimally rational point of view. That, of course, is my point with respect to human behavior and the Moral Law. Rationalization is, after all, a psychological defense mechanism. One of the most common and frequently used.

But if there is no such thing as humankind as a discrete species, I don't see how phrases like "the universal rights and responsibilities of man" solidly mean anything. It would be much better to rewrite the phrase as "the rights and responsibilities of everyone who can understand the language being spoken in right now, or some language into which this can be translated."

Don't you see though, once you dispose of the phrase, "the universal rights and responsibilities of man", you are forced to grapple with all the conflicting and contradictory rights and responsibilities that are said to be applicable to each individual man and women. And around the globe clumps of these folks are ever at each other's throats over what that means.

And surely you jest when you suggest that in speakng the same language, "rights and responsibilites" become more...malleable? Look around you. Has the English speaking world come to embrace Kant's moral narrative more of late...or moved ever farther away from it in our increasingly fragmented world?

neither/nor original post:

I just specualte this is of far less concern or relevance if the discussion revolves around gravity or weather phenomena or rock layers. When it revolves around human moral obligation though it is profoundly pertinent.

Some counterpoints:

The principles of evidence you accept regarding one set of beliefs will have some relationship with the principles you accept for others.

No one denies this. We are, after all, of the same species. We must, first and foremost, subsist. I went into some detail about this crucial overlapping agenda before. But when the "principles" revolve around everything short of this, the agendas come at us like so many tsunamis.

During, say, a murder trial, the parties involved, despite the empirical nature of the facts in question, can become very heated and then emotion can cloud their judgment.

Yes, emotion. That and intense psychological reactions are ever embedded in human relationships. And in part because rational discourse often breaks down when we cannot agree on what constitutes the most rational point of view. That is deeply hard wired in our brains. Which means it is deeply hard wired in our minds as well.

Debating whether the human mind is a blank slate, predisposed to violence and rape, etc. is all empirical/factual debate. But it regardless can be very controversial.

Kant clearly showed the human mind is more than a blank slate. I would never dispute that. But the manner in which nature and nurture coexist in the actual, instantiated human exchanges between minds grappling with this is precarious to say the least. No one really knows where one stops and the other begins. The essential nature of these relationships have never been rationally "deduced".

Except as mountains of words defining and defending other words---theoretically.

And trudging through Cantor's theory one is left with a gaping mouth: What in the world does this have to do with, say, the abortion wars!!!

It is just another example of you and I going around and around in the same circle: You trying to yank me "up there" into the conceptual clouds and me trying to yank you "down here" onto the ground---where nitty gritty human relationships are necessarily oblivious to the epistemic jargon of the philosophers.

....unless you think concepts of emotions are central to ethical concepts, I don't see how emotional pressure is a central factor in our using those concepts (any more central, anyway, than in science or math).

Concepts of emotions!! Perfect. Mary is struggling to balance a zillion conflicting emotional tugs from a zillion conflicting actors up on the staqge with her and you want to make that all go away by grounding her emotions and the contradictory moral narrartives in Kant! You can't bring yourself to acknowledge just how irrelevant he is "out on the road".

Bring Kant's theories up and they will either stare at you bewilderingly...or burst out laughing. What could be more irrelevant to them than the Critique of Pure and/or Practical Reason?!! And rightfully irrelevant [not to mention dangerous] in my view.

Now, this is important: The next time you tumble down into a circumstantial landslide as calamitous for you "in reality" as the hypothetical one Mary is in above, please bring it in here and situate your abstractions smack dab inside its existential vortex. It will be the ethical equivalent of quantum mechanics.

Unless, of course, I am already too late and you are fully prepared to hand your predicament over to Kant. ; o )

I say:

You want to focus on the "autonomy" of a mind that has been in and out of other minds all its life.

You respond:

Well, it's like taking a graph of a parabola and trying to figure out what function generated it (given inputs).

Again, minds colliding as though they were factors in math equations.

....like Kant says in the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, after "long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating" our consciousness of our essential functionality from our consciousness of "Dasein").


Tell me, does Kant give any particular examples of this from his own life? Or, as Durant noted, did he eschew illustrating the text because that he did not feel it was really necessary. How convenient. Nothing to deconstruct but towering conceptual models defining and defending additional towering conceptual models.

I would love to have Kant in this discussion with us. I'd have him running around in autodidactic circles in no time if he didn't come down out of the clouds. I'd burn the damn owner's manuel and shame him into taking that race car out on the road!! ; o )

neithernor original post:

And what exactly does it mean to tell Mary to be philosophical about a problem you know little or nothing about situated squarely in your own shoes?

I just say, "Be philosophical," or something. "Try to make all your beliefs and intentions consistent," maybe. "Consider this..." and list some things I think might be important to the matter. Now my friends might often ask me for advice: are you saying it's illicit for me to offer any just because I'm not the one dealing squarely with their problems?

Consistent with what? What sets of circumstance could she compare and contrast her own with so as to measure her progress toward the Moral Law?

And surely if there is one moral font that must be vital in establishing a meeting of the minds when rules of behavior are being considered it will be empathy. Without that the discussions can ossify quickly into the sort of abstractions autoritarians clamor for in hammering together their ideological doctrines. First there is...The Word.

neithernor original post:

.....my point is that the futility of concocting a "general law" to deal with abortion pales next to the futility of concocting a "general morality" to deal with it.

Okay, but that doesn't imply that there is no particular objective moral reality for us to live in.

No, but so far this "particular objective moral reality" has never been actually established "in reality". Aside, perhaps, from the realities that revolve around crusades, jihads and revolutions.

If Kant didn't go down for the count in the 20th century, he will surely be buried by the end of the 21st. By then the very thought that we might attach our behaviors to "duty" or "obligation" will become abhorent to anyone wanting to be though of as sane.

neither/nor wrote:
We rationalize largely because we are not able to invent or to discover an optimally rational point of view. That, of course, is my point with respect to human behavior and the Moral Law. Rationalization is, after all, a psychological defense mechanism. One of the most common and frequently used.

But how do you *know* that it's commonly used? Whatever power you invoke to learn that, "People often rationalize," is true is a power you should be well enough able to use for the sake of achieving the kind of objectivity you (seem to) claim is impossible for us.

And surely you jest when you suggest that in speakng the same language, "rights and responsibilites" become more...malleable? Look around you. Has the English speaking world come to embrace Kant's moral narrative more of late...or moved ever farther away from it in our increasingly fragmented world?

From what I know of international law and psychology, Kantian ethics has made some pretty good headway into some parts of the world (even if not explicitly recognized as having made that headway). For example, it's common to trace, say, bullying to self-esteem issues. The corruption of our self-esteem is a primary topic in Kantian ethics.

And trudging through Cantor's theory one is left with a gaping mouth: What in the world does this have to do with, say, the abortion wars!!!

My point was that Cantor's theory is true or false, knowable either way, yet emotion can still seriously affect our judgment of it. But that all means that we can achieve objective knowledge of something even if emotions cloud our judgments. How is ethics different?

Well, I know you claim that no moral problems have been solved, but I'm not sure what you mean by this. At first it sounded like you thought there was some general problem of what to do about abortion for us to solve, except that no one really can solve it (supposedly), which exception explains why no one has solved it, either. But then I tried to deny that there was a general question of the right thing to do about abortion and you stated you'd never said there was a general question about it.

I think that, "Everyone who can engage in practical reasoning is infinitely valuable," is true, known to be true by a lot of people, known on the basis of Kantian ethics, etc. Now the "problem" corresponding to it would be, "How valuable are those who can engage in practical reasoning?" So from my point of view, there is some moral problem that's been solved. Whether others disagree with me that the solution is at hand is an aside (just like Young Earth creationism's existence doesn't refute the theory of evolution).

Now, this is important: The next time you tumble down into a circumstantial landslide as calamitous for you "in reality" as the hypothetical one Mary is in above, please bring it in here and situate your abstractions smack dab inside its existential vortex. It will be the ethical equivalent of quantum mechanics.

I was kicked out of college for being "unreasonably disruptive of order" around two years back. This angered me a lot, but I didn't know what to do about it. My computer was stolen shortly thereafter with my life's work on it. To try to make myself feel better, I took two tabs of X and proceeded to talk to myself for like an hour while rolling, trying to understand myself and why my life was messed up. While on X, I came to the conclusion that where I'd gone wrong was somewhere in the domain of my self-esteem. Later, doubting the advice of my drug-addled self, I devoted a lot of time to Kant, John Rawls, and related writers, along with my regular regimen of philosophy, in trying to figure out how to deal with the college's betrayal of me. Finally, through Rawls, I hit upon the idea of civilly disobeying the college's no-trespass order against me. So I took this concrete step (protesting the college's actions towards me) based in part on my doing ethical philosophy. That restored the final damage to my self-confidence I'd suffered dealing with the school and my roommate at the time.

Again, minds colliding as though they were factors in math equations.

No, I wasn't talking about two or more people at odds with each other. I meant that the part of our minds that's independent of "Dasein" (except, say, genetically) is able to be discovered by us in the same way that we can go from a given line on the X,Y plane back to the function that traced it. (But if the mind is part of physical reality and physical reality can be exhaustively described in mathematical terms, then eventually a mathematical model of interpersonal conflict must be able to be constructed.)

Tell me, does Kant give any particular examples of this from his own life? Or, as Durant noted, did he eschew illustrating the text because that he did not feel it was really necessary. How convenient. Nothing to deconstruct but towering conceptual models defining and defending additional towering conceptual models.

I'd suggest the best thing for you to do with regards to your inquiry here would be to actually sit down and read (and reread) the Critique of Pure Reason. Besides that, Kant does in fact provide examples, for example of a ship floating down a river during his argument for the law of causality.

Consistent with what? What sets of circumstance could she compare and contrast her own with so as to measure her progress toward the Moral Law?

I just meant self-consistent. I.e. I'm advising her to check whether any of her beliefs contradict, if so how, from how to resolving the contradictions, etc. The coherence of her entire intentional/doxastic set with "the Moral Law" would be effected similarly, except in this case we wouldn't be supposing that the propositions and prescriptions of that law are accepted by Mary.

And surely if there is one moral font that must be vital in establishing a meeting of the minds when rules of behavior are being considered it will be empathy. Without that the discussions can ossify quickly into the sort of abstractions autoritarians clamor for in hammering together their ideological doctrines. First there is...The Word.

That sort of sounds like just more obscure psychological conjecture. How is it relevant to someone dealing with actual concrete circumstances involving political judgment? Who's to say what empathy even is?

By then the very thought that we might attach our behaviors to "duty" or "obligation" will become abhorent to anyone wanting to be though of as sane.

That would be... crazy. Or, more accurately, unfair. For an attitude of intense hostility towards a certain action on our part, which attitude is supposed to be a reflection of what's sane, just is the deontic stance. In other words, you're claiming that we will end up believing that our duty is not to use the concept or word duty.

neither/nor original post:

But who is the "you" drawing up the specs---a mere mortal?


....me and everyone else involved....

....the blueprint is drawn however we decide to draw it....

etc etc etc


What are you telling me here?

Nothing? Everything? Anything?

It is the most abstractly vague rebuttal imaginable.

"....me and everyone else involved"

"...however we decide to draw it..."

"....their ability to contribute to whatever the actual process...is."

"...with whatever we decided to start it with..."

"...the rules would be whatever they would be..."

"...what's morally correct depends on whatever the outcome...is"

Well, you got me there. How in the world am I expected to respond to something so self-consciously nebulous, amorphous, enigmatic, indeterminate?

Reminds me of Kant.

Since lots of those judgments need to be carried out by agents with unknown empirical knowledge, it isn't possible to determine those statements above - they are necessarily vague. The form of the process seemed to be at question, however, not the results.