Ethics
Once people become social, and form communities, envy, jealousy and competition become common, Rousseau hates this.
This spoils the initially innocent human nature.
We can regain civic freedom.
Civic freedom is made possible because there is law and community that everyone respects. As such Rousseau is quite in line with Hobbes.
The universal will is not necessarily identified only with a single society, but is actually in relation to God. It is not some natural passions that come from the individual. Rather it is from the capacity of the individual to be aware of the whole of what humanity desires.
If there is no society around us, we cannot submit to the general will.
It is against radical enlightenement. He has a strong belief in the capacity of each individual to be guided by good will, an idea of what really needs to be done.
This kind of awareness is not the result of intellectual study, every human has access to it. Everyone is as such equal.
Rousseau is quite critical towards passions. Not sure what he wanted to say with this. He just said it.
Kant:
Before Kant created his three critiques. He had already done a lot. Was teaching a lot of subjects, was well read on the sciences and mathematics. All these things were material that a man of his stature would be well-aware of.
In the critique of pure reason, which is not about ethics, but rather epistemology about what is needed for knowledge to exist, or reality. What is the value of speculation itself, compared to natural science or mathematics.
Once his critique was developed, it opened all kinds of reflections and research, that had direct interest for ethics. Epistemological issues are often related to meta-ethical reflections. Epistemological issues are usually about how one comes to know what is right or wrong. Because we need to know that. And we need to know if that is possible. We need to realise where the ideas of ethics actually come from. The critique of pure reason is fundamental. As such, philosophers like Fichte and Hegel did not just start from the critique of practical reason (okay?).
Epistemology is important for ethics, because some people rely on the fact of their intutitions about ethics, and the question must fall upon whether this immediate awareness of right and wrong is still relevant?
On the one side, empiricists who think that knowledge comes from sensational experiences. You have impressions, they become ideas, and then they are thought about and mixed around, as in Hume. Already in Hume, this is shown to be difficult to defend. When thinking about causality, we have the impression that we are experiencing causal relations, but what we really perceive is just that one thing happened after the other. We cannot see causality. So seeing that there is a cause between impressions and ideas seems odd already from the start.
For Kant, there is bringing in and processing of immediate structures. What kind of structures are there? The ones that make perception for us, towards knowledge. (okay?). On the first instance we have perception. What do we perceive? Whatever it is, something that takes place in space. We cannot perceive anything that isn’t in space. As such it must have some features that we can perceive because they seem to have spatial features. We perceive them, the one after the other. We don’t see everything everywhere at once. As such, there is both time and space. We cannot bring things before our minds without space and time. Does that mean that things have features in themselves? We don’t know. We just know what they appear as, when we grasp them as things that take space and time. Without these two concepts, it seems difficult for things to actually appear in our minds.
[He starts talking about big bang; people believe that before the big bang there was no time. For Kant this is incomprehensible. We cannot even think about things that are without time, or space, for that matter.]
Once we have these sensations that create representations before our mind, we have to combine them and put them in a specific frame. This frame requires logical principles; categories. Our mind judges and follows a certain logic. The things we can manage with that logic, these categories, are able to become knowable. We can structure how things appear to us. The moment this is actualised, because we realise that the world fits into how we structure reality, then it is ourselves that is the most important. The function of human beings, becomes more important; copernican revolution. The subject with its way of understanding the world is important in making that world appear to us as it does appear. What doesn’t fit, what isn’t there before we structure it, is the thing in itself and as such not knowable.
Things we can figure out, for example that time and space are conditional to make things appear to us, and as such the fact that they are there before we think about them, we can know that they are a priori. They are there before we have empirical experiences about them. Eg. you can develop an entire mathematical project by starting with things that are not related to experience and outside reality. The natural sciences for Kant are the disciplines where we use our logical system to deal with empirical facts, in such a way that we see regularities. Once we start to speculate about issues that are not related to a priori sensations, then our knowledge is no longer solid. We cannot be sure about it, and it is purely speculation.
The subject itself however is never perceived. The thinking and reasoning ”I” seems a bit different than the rest of the world. The subject who is reasoning, and is conscious of how we are, is an instance beyond ourselves. It looks on what we are doing, and is therefore seemingly indestructible, and so we must suppose that it is there. But we cannot know, because there are no empirical features of it, like the material things around us. The subject is fundamentally different from the rest of the world. As such, some kind of soul is posited as speculation. The ”I” seems real, but it cannot be verified.
All that we experience of the world then, becomes the result of speculation. It becomes supposition. It doesn’t rest on anyone experiencing it.
Metaphysical propositions then, are not real knowledge, but are further speculation based on empirically real things.
In the critique of practical reason, which was already started in the groundwork for the metaphysics of morals, it seems that he comes up with a strong difference between what has to do with knowledge, and the things that are about truth. This seems to have to do with our will, and what sort of things we need to do.
He makes a distinction between those that have to do with the world of nature, and all those things that are about people’s freedom. Free people can escape the determinations of nature through their I-in-itself. It has a kind of capacity from how most things in nature go. The possibility to will and obey or not. And this is not a result of determination, but is free. As such, they can opt for certain decisions, obey certain maxims, or not. For kant this makes humans almost sacred.
Ethics in Aristotle and neoplatonism was about being guided by personal passions and ideas. Developing yourself in a way that leads you to happiness and your own essence. So that you reach your final goal as your fundamental self. Ethics is seen as answering a natural tendency of people. With Hobbes, ethics is not related to following natural tendencies. Rather it is realising that because of collaboration we need to follow certain obligations, which we cannot transgress. We need to follow expectations. As such morality is not about following your true self, but is about obeying commonly agreed rules. You breech the a contract of the community. Instead of thinking that ethics is a personal longing for the good, it is about being part of a community and following its epectations system, so that all things run smoothly in the defence of one another. It comes from without rather than within.
This is law-bound ethics. Duties because of maxims posited by the society.
For Kant there is a big difference between animals and human beings. A person is an instance that can decide how they will live, or how they will set their goals. As such they cannot be treated as animals, or things. They have to be treated as goals in themselves. They needed to be treated in such a way so that they can utilise their free will. For Kant, what is good on its own, independent of anything else, cannot be something outside the human being – not a goal or an objective, nor the fulfillment of virtues. Because even splendid virtues can be used in wicked ways. Imagine that you are a very gentle person, yet this is used in a wicked way, like seducing people to do evil or whatever. The only thing that has value on its own is a good will. The inner awareness wherein you believe that you need to answer what is really necessary to be good. To follow and to answer your duties.
Kant belives that everyone can have a notion of what needs to be done, becuase everyone has the ability to have a good will. Everyone can realise on their own wha needs to be done in an ethical way. Everyone is able to be a free person. They have the capacity to suceed with the utmost important things in human life. Because Kant makes a distinction between the determinations of the natural world, of which humans are not a part of due to the subject not being empirically observable like it and as such probably has a moral sublime task. Everyone has the same chance to be an instance of a morally sublime being. A completely justified life is the good life in which one realises how one needs to live to realise how you need to live to be respected and respecting. That doesn’t end up humiliating or hurting people, by making the inherent equality between people less objectively real.
Problems people have had with this perspective, is that if an I is completely free, then it is completely unpredictable, and that perhaps there is no relation to it and its real physical emotions and impressions. Usually we have the intuition that many motivations are physical. Normal common human beings usually don’t decide on things just by reason, but rather by following their character and their way of doing things. And it seems self-evident that what they do is related to that character, but in a Kantian perspective, the I must be an entirely blind spot without any guided motivation at all. As such there is a risk in Kant’s system that the individual cannot have a character or a personality anymore.
In the groundwork of methaphysics of morals, Kant tried to find supreme principles of morality, what is really moral.
For Kant, there is the possibility to develop theoretical reflections not based on --- (couldn’t hear) but by principles that are generally true, a priori. Because of the idea that we are human beings, it follows that… It needs to be logically and fundamentally true. He belives that he discovers these kinds of principles. For instance, the formula of universal law. ”I art never to act in such a way such that I cannot will that that act can be put to a universal law”.
Some ethicists think that this become a real and proper way of testing whether things then are moral or not. Professor thinks this is a mistake. These formulas are not tools to be used to check our actions. The idea seems to be that there must be a kind of ideal community which make it possible that every human being can be a human being. From this kind of position, behaving morally right, is behaving in such a way that the world community of human beings would allow that act to be a moral law. It is not giving a guideline to test if something is right or wrong, but it is trying to approach the original idea of morality itself. He is trying to understand what ethics is about generally. This seems in line with Rousseau, that we need to have a universal community with a general will, which is only a good will if it wills the will of every human individual. This makes every human being worthwhile in themselves, as they have the unique capcity to develop a good will. We can imagine what it is for the human world to be organised in such a way as to make every person as free as possible, as close to their Is as possible.
Then there is the formula of nature: ”act as if your act could become a law of nature”.
He means as if it would be a law of nature, as if there are causal relations with natural laws, but that actually come from among ourselves. We need a natural law, by analogy. What I want to be realised must be as a natural law.
It all comes as the formula of humanity: ”Act as if you act with humanity always as an end, and never as means”
Autonomy law: ”Act so your will could regard itself as giving universal law through all its maxims.”
Kingdom of ends: ”act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws in the kingdom of ends” (Whatever this means)
We need to think about what kind of duties we have, from the perspective of the community we are living in. We need to make it possible to live a decent human life, not being dominated, not being treated as an animal. Respecting a human being is seeing that human being as a goal on their own.
Bernard Williams: The attractiveness is the idea of equality. Everyone has the same chance to obtain what is ultimate, by following their own duties, and having a good will. This is a very attractive idea, because it is also comforting. Williams believe that in reality, the world is very unequal. Human beings are not all in the same way able to be morally good. And it would be way nicer that everyone has the same possibility to reach the good. Perhaps the world evolves in that direction, but the chances to be a good person seem unequal. It is more difficult not to beat your children if you were beat as a child for example, and as such you seem to require to work more in order to reach the goal.
Kant suggests that the capability of using reason is fundamental, and that there is only a person when that person can behave morally. As such, it seems that people with demenita for example cannot be implicated to be moral or not. Peter Hecker defends this idea. A person is only a person in the capacity to which they can be free and make moral decisions in a real way. [But we don’t wanna say that people with dementia aren’t people, or moral actors rather. We usually don’t think someone is human just because they can reason well. Ie. It’s better to talk about person as someone who is a moral actor]. According to Hecker, we see most people have the capability to be autonomous, and from that position on, we make a general respect for all people, despite not all people actually having reason. As such we respect people despite not knowing that everyone has reason in all cases.
Being purely moral is making decisions because of rational insight, rather than passion. This is quite contraintuitive. Passions are part of our way of being, and our will is not only a computerised decisionmaking process. The notion of virtue is in that sense more interesting than Kant actually thinks.
Kant’s approach is trying to figure out what morality is metaphysically, but if we turn to Kant himself, he liked dinner, speaking, and other human things. This seems somewhat passion-based.
If we think about freedom spontaneously, we think about consumer-freedom. It is personal and relative, everyone can think for themselves. But this is not the case for Kant. Everyone cannot rationally come to their own particular conclusions. Rather, he thinks that everyone is rationally prepared to come to the same conclusions. As such, his notion of freedom is awkward, as we are free to come to the same conclusions as everyone else. Much like in the republic of Plato, wherein there are no masters, but everyone has to do what they need to do for the common good. As such they aren’t really free to do whatever they like.
In the end for Kant, the best political system is also a republic on an international universal order.
Moral intutitions are moral because they are expressions of the general moral good will which we learn intuitively, and as such we do not need to think deeply and rationally about every act we do.
Kant changes the philosophical reflection in a deep way.
There is an awareness that the kind of processing of information we do is also about how we use language in a particular environment.
If we consider the way in which we process information to make sensible knowledge of it, and see it as socialisation, then the culture we are raised in plays an important role in how we see the world to appear. If we are raised in a culture that categorises and as such makes the world appear differntly, then reality, roles and expectation also appears from that cultivated way of doing things. Even the way in which we think about feelings seem not to be the same across all cultures.
Kant makes a distinction between the determinsitc natural order and the order of the subject, and as such it offers a view of a traditional religious perspective. People like hobbes and hume would embrace the natural order, whilst in Kant this doesn’t have to be the case. This seems inspired by protestantism generally. The idea that ethics is universal has always been guided by the idea of a God. If there is a last judgement, when God makes the distinction between right and wrong, it must be universal, much like the fundamental laws of Kant. So it seems at the very least inspired by theological ideas. As soon as one leaves this onto-theological way of thinking about God, and return to pagan ethics, then it is more about how we, until we die, must organise our life in a particular way, and other people can do it as they like. Religion has played a very long role in the kind of philosophy that becomes, as something that is universal. It should be able to be a matter of negotiation, but this seems to not be the case in Kant.
[Whenver there is a demand of universalisation, it is onto-theological].