Kantian Ethics and Theories -

[chimpburgers]

I noticed that there are several people on the Farms who happen to know something about Immanuel Kant and his deontological moral theories. I am not really in the position to judge which theories are right or wrong, but this is a short background about who he was and what his work entailed.

@AnOminous and @Werner Heisenberg, if you want to continue your debate about the subject, you can do so in here as well.

This website seems to provide a decent summary of what it is.

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/Kantian Ethics.htm

Kant, unlike Mill, believed that certain types of actions (including murder, theft, and lying) were absolutely prohibited, even in cases where the action would bring about more happiness than the alternative. For Kantians, there are two questions that we must ask ourselves whenever we decide to act: (i) Can I rationally will that everyone act as I propose to act? If the answer is no, then we must not perform the action. (ii) Does my action respect the goals of human beings rather than merely using them for my own purposes? Again, if the answer is no, then we must not perform the action. (Kant believed that these questions were equivalent).

Kant’s theory is an example of a deontological moral theory–according to these theories, the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfill our duty.

Kant believed that there was a supreme principle of morality, and he referred to it as The Categorical Imperative.

Other great resources:

http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~sdaniel/Notes/ethics3a.html

http://www.loyno.edu/~folse/Kant.html

Bio on Kant:

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I think that Kant was correct on transcendental idealism. I am a skeptic on the categorical imperative but I am quite influenced by him on my elaboration upon the hypothetical imperative and on the notion of respecting personal autonomy=

 

[AnOminous]

I noticed that there are several people on the Farms who happen to know something about Immanuel Kant and his deontological moral theories. I am not really in the position to judge which theories are right or wrong, but this is a short background about who he was and what his work entailed.

We weren't really arguing his ethics so much as I was sperging about terminology. Heisenberg was correct about his actual points, I just think that what is being done in the name of critical theory these days is so degenerated from its origins that calling it Kantian at this point is nonsense.

It was also not about Kant's ethics, which couldn't be further from the postmodern, but his method of critique as evolved through Marx, Foucault, Baudrillard, and what came to be known as postmodernists.

Really, I was engaging in the philosophical version of sperging that Teen Titans Go doesn't deserve to be in the franchise, because there's an evolutionary connection between these modes of analysis. I just approve of one and hate the other.

I don't see any particular reason to sperg about Kantian ethics in particular, though, at least not now.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

What thread was this that @AnOminous and @Werner Heisenberg were arguing on

 

[chimpburgers]

What thread was this that @AnOminous and @Werner Heisenberg were arguing on

Starts here and goes a little bit into the next page.

 

[The Giver]

We weren't really arguing his ethics so much as I was sperging about terminology. Heisenberg was correct about his actual points, I just think that what is being done in the name of critical theory these days is so degenerated from its origins that calling it Kantian at this point is nonsense.

It was also not about Kant's ethics, which couldn't be further from the postmodern, but his method of critique as evolved through Marx, Foucault, Baudrillard, and what came to be known as postmodernists.

A bit nit picky, but I think to mention Marx as a descendant of Kant is a bit misleading. Marx is more directly Hegelian than anything else in terms of his overall philosophical method. Of course, every philosophy post-Kant is indebted to Kant's work and approach, but Hegel was the real titanic influence and direct philosophical ancestor of Marx, imo.

 

[AnOminous]

A bit nit picky, but I think to mention Marx as a descendant of Kant is a bit misleading. Marx is more directly Hegelian than anything else in terms of his overall philosophical method. Of course, every philosophy post-Kant is indebted to Kant's work and approach, but Hegel was the real titanic influence and direct philosophical ancestor of Marx, imo.

That's actually part of my point. Kant is such a titanic figure that for any school of thought not directly connected with him to claim to be "Kantian" is, well, appropriation of a sort.

I seriously think the Wikipedia philosophy articles and the whole way Wikipedia deals with philosophy encourages this bullshit.

Schools of thought attract Wikipedia editors who exploit this odd system Wikipedia has, and if you've read philosophy articles on the site, you know what I mean. Every philosopher of note has a section on the right upper side of the article, the infobox or whatever the fuck it's called, which always contains an "influences" and an "influenced" list of links.

Sounds like a good idea, right? If you like a philosopher, wouldn't you like to know who influenced them and who they influenced, so you can follow some path of fucking learning and shit and actually get enlightened?

Yeah yeah yeah.

But in reality, what these little infoboxes do is encourage warfare over them, as people who love a particular philosopher want to get them associated with someone, like Kant, that everyone admires.

When I flipped out about the Kant thing, I was actually hoping someone would go and cite Wikipedia, since everyone fucking does, just so I could go on my own autistic bitch rant about how I hate the way Wikipedia does this shit.

I would love to see someone justify postmodernism and claim Kant would have supported this shit, because IMO he would have hated it. If you pulled this shit with Kant in person he would have put your mouth to the curb and stomped your ass.

That's just what I'm saying.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

That's actually part of my point. Kant is such a titanic figure that for any school of thought not directly connected with him to claim to be "Kantian" is, well, appropriation of a sort.

I seriously think the Wikipedia philosophy articles and the whole way Wikipedia deals with philosophy encourages this bullshit.

Schools of thought attract Wikipedia editors who exploit this odd system Wikipedia has, and if you've read philosophy articles on the site, you know what I mean. Every philosopher of note has a section on the right upper side of the article, the infobox or whatever the fuck it's called, which always contains an "influences" and an "influenced" list of links.

Sounds like a good idea, right? If you like a philosopher, wouldn't you like to know who influenced them and who they influenced, so you can follow some path of fucking learning and shit and actually get enlightened?

Yeah yeah yeah.

But in reality, what these little infoboxes do is encourage warfare over them, as people who love a particular philosopher want to get them associated with someone, like Kant, that everyone admires.

When I flipped out about the Kant thing, I was actually hoping someone would go and cite Wikipedia, since everyone fucking does, just so I could go on my own autistic bitch rant about how I hate the way Wikipedia does this shit.

I would love to see someone justify postmodernism and claim Kant would have supported this shit, because IMO he would have hated it. If you pulled this shit with Kant in person he would have put your mouth to the curb and stomped your ass.

That's just what I'm saying.

I imagine that the infoboxes for socrates plato and aristotle used to be completely full until the editors just said "Most of Western philosophy that came after his works"

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I find it interesting that there are several different formulations of the Categorical imperative

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.

 

[dacote]

I find it interesting that there are several different formulations of the Categorical imperative

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.

That's because he wrote in Latin and they're all translations. His grammar was so tortured that trying to read his stuff first hand you expend so much cognitive energy keeping count of the number of negatives used in a statement by the time you make it through a chapter you have no idea what it is you've read.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

That's because he wrote in Latin and they're all translations. His grammar was so tortured that trying to read his stuff first hand you expend so much cognitive energy keeping count of the number of negatives used in a statement by the time you make it through a chapter you have no idea what it is you've read.

Why didn't he just provide the original latin then

 

[dacote]

Wait no I fucked up, disregard that I suck cocks etc