From: [email protected] (malenor)


"Phil Roberts, Jr."  wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> malenor wrote:
> > 
> > > >
> > > > "Phil Roberts, Jr."  wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> > > > >
> > > > > The categorical imperative isn't actually a categorical
> > > > > imperative.  It is entailed by the implicit premise, 'Given that one
> > > > > chooses to be rational'.
> > > >
> > > > Where did you get the idea that this was the
> > > > idea behind the CI?
> > >
> > > My own limited imagination apparently, and my assumption that justification
> > > is about rationality through and through.   Are you
> > > suggesting that we are obligated to conform to the CI for no reason
> > > whatsoever?
> > >
> > Kant does mention "duty" 99 times in the Critique of Practical Reason,
> > for a reason. Your use of the term "reason" implies its meaning as a
> > motive. I like your tricky equivocations on terms, it makes me have to
> > stop and think. What is my reason for conforming to the CI, i.e., what
> > is my *motive* for doing so? In other words, you're talking about the
> > efficient cause of my behavior, but it is not an empirical cause,
> > rather, one generated internally and originally. 
> 
> I could use a short refresher on 'efficient cause'.

Those conditions that cause an acorn to grow into an oak tree (the
final cause). Efficient cause is a cause in our modern sense of the
term. Aristotle had developed a theory of causes which would make room
for his theory of teleology (final ends of nature). There was
theoretically a formal, an efficient, and a final cause to every
event. The formal cause is idea of the image of Zeus, to be revealed
by the hands of the sculptor in stone. The efficient cause is the
sculpting of the stone, and the final cause is the end-product, the
sculpture of Zeus.

> > And so through
> > reflection I am able to realize that there are two senses of "desire"
> > that impel me to act in the world, a lower and a higher. The lower
> > desires find their "reasons" in the empirical and psychological realms
> > (circumstances and inclinations). 
> 
> Coming from an evolutionary perspective,

First of all, we must define this faculty of desire (as I did already)
as that which seeks a causal connection between self and the world.
One would not say that about emotions in general, but desire in
particular. It could be that there is a different faculty for each
emotion, with some relation to causality. But Kant is here focusing on
desire in particular. Many of those emotions are the result of
aesthetic judgments.

 I would simply say lower 
> and higher emotion, with the lower EMOTIONS (PLURAL rather than
> singular, i.e., the id is not some evil monster, but more like
> a bunch of bungling [very shortsighted] idiots)
> associated with remnants of our prereflective heritage in which 
> survival was not the result of any long range intention or
> will to survive,> but merely the cumulative effect of a bunch of independent mini-wills
> (have sex now) which were undertaken in a robot like fashion with 
> little if any understanding
> of the overall objective they were "designed" to achieve (the perpetuation
> of one's DNA).

Sounds like you're talking about the various instincts of animals.
Kant shows that there is not only a lower animal, but also a higher
animal. This latter is found in Man's desire to seek a long-range
happiness in the world. He writes of a possible view of man as being
just a very clever animal that is particularly adept at producing
pleasure in itself, even to the extent that he is able to willingly
put up with certain short-term pains in order to bring about pleasure
and happiness in the long run. This we know as utilitarianism. I have
called it just another form of hedonism. This lower and higher animal
are still elements within us and not to be repressed or neglected in a
philosophy of morals. Hedonism is not a bad thing. We come to
understand these parts of our being through transcendental reflection
on our faculties and their various representations.

>   "Sex is nature's way of getting us to behave AS IF we wanted to
>    have lots and lots of offspring"  (Robert Wright).

And religion is man's way of getting us to behave AS IF there is a God
and an eternal hereafter.

> > The higher desires find their
> > reasons in the transcendent. It is, for all intents and purposes, as
> > if I am saying that I do my duty for no apparent reason whatsoever,
> > "duty is its own reward," duty for the sake of duty. And, as far as
> > empirical conditions are concerned, this is the case.
> > 
> 
> I would say that the higher emotions are the result of the fact that
> our capacity to reason makes us increasingly more aware of reality from
> an increasinly more objective perspective which increasingly makes
> us more susceptible to feelings of worthlessness in that an 
> objective assessment of one's worth requires EVIDENCE that one 
> warrants that worth. 

These are facts pretty much taken for granted by Kant. It is mostly
Objectivists who bring up obvious ideas and try to make them sound
profoundly original. And your focus seems to be external, or perhaps a
little of both external and internal. But Kant is focused on
reflecting internally, on that which we can control and brings
objectivity and necessity. In this way we can know what to symbolize
externally. To constantly look for external evidence of self-worth is
the method of the narcissist. The only relevant external evidence to
seek would be those things that symbolize our growth as moral beings
in conformity with the Ideas of pure reason and the CI.

 To counter this,
> nature has instilled in us a lust for self-significating experience 
> (e.g., needs for love, purpose, meaning, moral integrity, power, wealth
> etc.) to try to constrain our valuative objectivity as much as possible 
> due to the fact that organisms that think they're the hottest thing on 
> the planet are far more likely to survive and reproduce.

Kant would say then, that giving man a rational faculty is the worst
thing nature could have done, if seeking self-significating experience
is his instinctive goal. All nature would have to do is give an animal
a constant sex drive rather than a seasonal one. This requires no
self-worth whatsoever, and really, no consciousness of self either.

> > But one must be careful and not read into this principle a motive for
> > self-sacrifice. The CI is the highest principle of the self and so to
> > discard the self is to discard the CI. And besides, a being of
> > positive emotional self-worth is far more likely to practice the
> > higher good in the world, than a being who is lowly and contemptible:
> > 
> >  "And now the law of duty, in consequence of the
> > *positive worth* which obedience to it makes us feel, finds easier
> > access through the respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our
> > freedom. When this is well established, when a man dreads nothing more
> > than to find himself, on self-examination, worthless and contemptible
> > in his own eyes, then every good moral disposition can be grafted on
> > it, because this is the best, nay, the only guard that can keep off
> > from the mind the pressure of ignoble and corrupting motives." (CPR2,
> > emphasis mine.)
> > 
> 
> Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  I was unaware of this passage in
> Kant.  Could you give a bit more of a specific reference on this.

In the Methodology of Pure Practical Reason, I think its the 12th
paragraph or so down. This is close to the end of the work. All I have
is the e-text.

> Is my unfamiliarity with this passage simply because I just 
> haven't been paying attention, or is it because 
> Kant scholars have been woefully remiss in drawing attention to
> it?  ITS A MAJOR AND CRUCIAL ELEMENT in case no one else
> has noticed.

Well, it's one of those points that Kant repeats again and again in
various fashions. But this fact doesn't prevent any philosophers from
misinterpreting him, as usual. And I have stated it on this forum a
few times, although not in the context of self-worth, but of
happiness. And Kant states earlier in the work that a happy person is
more likely to be a moral person. I would bring this fact up usually
to counter some troll who strayed in from HPO to claim that Kant
favored self-sacrifice, misery, etc.

{snipped - see 129b)