From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




Ed Cryer wrote:
> 
> 
> Kant rates in my opinion as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.
> I would hold "The Critique of Pure Reason" to be the single most important
> book of philosophy ever written and concur with Goethe who said that to read
> it was to enter a brightly lit room. But when Kant moved from epistemology
> to ethics he slipped. He's famous for the line "the starry heavens above us
> and the moral law within us", and also for saying that he had to limit
> knowledge in order to make room for faith. Don't forget that he was a
> Lutheran Pietist by upbringing and practice and that his categorical
> imperative comes very close to "do unto others as you would have them do
> unto you".
> 

Let me employ Ed's intelligent remarks as a spring board for reintroducing
the intial thought with which I began this thread.  A bit of crass 
self promotion if you don't mind.

The categorical imperative isn't actually a categorical
imperative.  It is entailed by the implicit premise, 'Given that one 
chooses to be rational'.  That's why I like my own reformulation of the
matter.  I slip the empirical content in the back door, presumably by
constructing a theory of rationality which maximizes explanatory coherence
better than any of its alterantives, and in which being rational simply 
equates with being moral (i.e., valuatively objective, i.e., loving others
as you love yourself).  This provides one with the "is" for my ought, i.e.,
Given that one chooses to be rational, then one ought to love (value) your neighbor
as you love (value) yourself.  It also gets a closer to the will notion than
Kant, in that its more a matter of what you are (e.g., a loving being) than a matter
of what you do.

As to why anyone should choose to be rational, I have no idea.  Indeed, if
the theory of rationality I have constructed is correct, then it is entirely
possible to be too rational for one's own good.  That's the bad news.  The
good news is that by assuming that 'being rational' equates with 'being 
objective', both epsistemically, and in the case of practical rationality,
valuatively as well, you can solve all sorts of rationality paradoxes (Prisoner's
dilemma, Newcomb's problem, etc.), you can lay claim to empirical verification
of Godel's theorem, and you can account for a number of naturalistic anomalies
in nature's most rational species (i.e., an increase in non-self-serving concern
and emotional instability).  Seems to me that should be worth a little gloom
and doom.

BTW, I've just put an updated paper of mine on the web, one which I have been
privileged to present at a number of scientific and philosophical conferences.
I want to submit it to a journal, but am desperately in need of a little 
feedback.  From what I've seen there are some pretty good minds lurking 
about here.  Here's the Abstract and the web address for anyone who might
be interested in commenting on it, either in the group, or in private
email:

Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock:
The Mechanics of Genetic Indeterminism

Abstract

Based on his identification of "the qualities by which the mind is convey'd 
from one idea to another", the venerable David Hume (1739) has managed to 
decipher some of the logic of how value behaves.  By relying on this logic, 
and with the help of a few diagrams, I have found it possible to account for 
the presence of non-self-serving concern for others in a natural world 
presumed to favor selfishness.  In this scenario, the cumulative effect of 
Hume's logic operating over millennia of cultural evolution has become 
sufficient to have overwhelmed nature's incessant culling of the valuatively 
unfit (other-interested individuals).  Although less than optimal, the 
resulting valuative profile has been tolerated by natural selection as a 
necessary premium for reaping the adaptive  rewards that attend a rational 
species.  Paradoxically, this would also entail the intriguing implication 
that we have become less determined (conatively/valuatively) by natural 
selection as a result of natural selection.

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/

pr