Read some Kant ethics today, went over it in a lecture. It's not just a 100 level course, I promise. I encountered a problem though; unless I'm wrong, Kant says:
A) It is our moral duty to assign moral motives.
B) ONLY people who choose perform their duty for the motive of performing duty are good; choosing to do good for your own sake, be it for ulterior greed, reputation, or even self-satisfaction, is not moral.
Point B suggests that duty is a motive, as it is a reason for which people choose to do things. Point A suggests that if it's a moral one, it must have been assigned, as it would not be out moral duty to assign motive if they existed already.
This means that, prior to the assignment of moral value to the concept of duty, it was not your moral duty to assign moral motives. Ergo, anyone who assigned moral value to the motive of duty is not doing so for the sake of moral duty, as it was not valuable when they made the decision to do so. Since they were not assigning moral value to duty for the sake of doing their moral duty, they were immoral to do so, as stated by point B in Kant's own words.
(1/2)
>>910920
Here are the attempts I've made to argue with my point:
1) Moral duty could have existed in nature as an integral part of humans.
-but that violates point B: if fulfilling moral duty is human nature, then fulfilling it would be inevitable; that suggests all decisions by an individual fulfill their moral duty, which contradicts B given that B claims only certain decisions with proper motives do.
2) The assignment of that value reaches backwards in time, much in the way the assignment of the word "square" can be applied to items fitting the current definition of "square" even if they existed before the word was assigned definition. Ergo, by assigning moral value to assigning moral value, you are justifying the assignment itself and all future ones.
-but that's killing your own grandfather. If we decide moral value exists eternally, then there never was a reason to instantiate it in the first place. That means it wasn't anyone's moral duty to instantiate moral duty, so no moral person could have done so, which in turn means it can't exist eternally as there needs to have been an assignment at some point in order for it to exist in such a fashion, even if that assignment causes it to have existed prior.
Am I misrepresenting Kant or is he just full of it when it comes to ethics?
(2/2)
Kant is full of it when it comes to ethics for two reasons.
1. Like all moral philosophers, his 'objective system' is really nothing more than axiomatically asserting his favorite values as the Good-In-Itself, then creating the most efficient means to achieving those values. All moral philosophies start by asserting, by axiom "This is Good, this is the most important thing" and everything past that is just creating an elaborate system around that. Whether that "Good" by eudaimonia, or pleasure, or power, or 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number', or 'duty', its all the same.
2. His system is literally the inversion of why human beings created values. Human beings created values as abstractions of their own desires. To pursue these values, they instinctively formed into reciprocal groups. To keep order in these reciprocal groups and aid in their shared goals, they created laws to add a negative incentive to those who harmed the group.
Kant literally is the inversion of morality. He takes the laws, which are twice removed from Value, as the important thing, and everything beyond that is irrelevant. Men invented honesty because lies hurt them, then invented laws against deceit to make lying unattractive, and now a man comes along saying its more important to tell the truth, even if the world should end around you.
What a ridiculous notion.
>>910920
>prior to the assignment of moral value to the concept of duty
>...they were immoral to do so, as stated by point B in Kant's own words.
You can't do that. You are denying the antecedent of B (why?), but you accept the consequent. Of course you must arrive at a contradiction (see contrapositive).
A states: You must choose a motive.
B states: The only motive you may choose is duty therefore choosing any other motive is wrong.
That is, unless you get stuck up in the semantics of "duty", in which case you end up in a loop where in A you require "duty for motives", and in B "motives for duty". I have never read Kant, but I assume he didn't intend to troll his readers such. This is exactly the problem you have in >>910922 and there is no resolution for it.
If you want to resolve your problem with the word "duty", then view the duty in A as a higher level duty from the one in B. It is also questionable whether is was properly translated (originally in German I believe).
Also, you can't bootstrap any system of values, like this guy >>911001 said:
>1. Like all moral philosophers, his 'objective system' is really nothing more than axiomatically asserting his favorite values
But I disagree with:
>its more important to tell the truth, even if the world should end around you.
>What a ridiculous notion.
If you agree that your world will end anyway, and the proportion of your existence is infinitely small compared to the Universe, then you arrive at Stoicism, and the notion of "Always tell the truth." makes very much sense.
>>911202
>You are denying the antecedent of B (why?), but you accept the consequent.
Why? Because it's something which is assigned. What I'm doing is showing that the consequences of accepting the antecedent contradict the antecedent.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is "the answer is point number 2" then further claiming that "you're only able to destroy point number 2 because you probably read Kant incorrectly," right? I'm a little hesitant to accept that given that you've admitted to not having read Kant, but if there were a misconception that'd likely be where it is.
>>911276
I have no simple way to explain this, but bear with me for a moment:
B is a proposition, let's call the two parts B_ante and B_cons. If you know basic propositional logic it is of the form "if B_ante then B_cons", or "from B_ante follows B_cons", or B_ante -> B_cons. Important: This is logically equivalent to (NOT B_cons) - > (NOT B_ante), also called the contrapositive.
Your problem is the following (!): You understand A and B_ante yet again as propositions themselves, of the form:
A: "If duty then motives", or duty -> motives, or D -> M
B_ante: "If motives then duty", or motives -> duty, or M -> D
A is true (given), so is B, but B_ante is neither true or false, it is an antecedent in a proposition*. Now a consequent in a proposition is only forced to be true, when the antecedent is true.
What you say is the following: Since it doesn't follow from A that B_ante is either true or false [1] (see *), we are allowed to assume B_cons is false, or (NOT B_cons) [2]. Therefore (NOT B_ante) [3] is true, but this contradicts with B_ante - obviously. Or if you are familiar with logic notation:
B_ante -> B_cons is given
You assume (NOT B_cons) (why?), then you arrive at (NOT B_ante), but you're surprised when it's the opposite of B_ante.
>[1] "This means that, prior to the assignment of moral value to the concept of duty, it was not your moral duty to assign moral motives."
>[2] "Ergo, anyone who assigned moral value to the motive of duty is not doing so for the sake of moral duty, as it was not valuable when they made the decision to do so."***
>[3] "Since they were not assigning moral value to duty for the sake of doing their moral duty, they were immoral to do so, as stated by point B in Kant's own words."
***You made a little logical fallacy here, since he could've acted morally without KNOWINGLY acting morally. I oversaw this in my original remark, but this fallacy is ignored in this post here.
>>911473
The only reason you are allowed to Assume (NOT B_cons) at all, is because you don't see B_ante as given. And this is why I say it might be mis-translated, because if A is understood as I suggested it in my first comment, then it means:
A: You must choose a motive:
B (more precisely this time): If you must choose a motive then you must choose duty. Therefore choosing any other motive is wrong.
Therefore having a motive which does not accord with duty ("anyone who assigned moral value to the motive of duty is not doing so for the sake of moral duty") cannot even occur.
I hope this is clearer now, but I fear I confused you even more. Look up propositional logic if you like, it's really useful.
>>911473
but Kant clearly stated !B_cos. If and only if someone is acting for the motive of performing duty are they moral. Emphasis on "and only if"; anyone doing something for any other motive can't be moral.
To a degree I guess I might have confused "not moral" or "lacking in morals" with "immoral" or "anti-moral"; not being good isn't necessarily bad, but he does definitely say they aren't good.
>You made a little logical fallacy here, since he could've acted morally without KNOWINGLY acting morally.
That's actually a really solid point. To reiterate, you're saying that in regards to point (2) in my second post, it's possible the person who instantiated eternal value did not know it was already there (and how would he, as he'd yet to see it instantiated) and therefore had a mistaken motive to put it there, which caused it to be there and justify him putting it there.
>>911512
I think you're misrepresenting A there though, to my knowledge Kant isn't saying we physically or psychologically cannot avoid inventing duty.
>Therefore having a motive which does not accord with duty cannot even occur.
That's point 1 in my second post. If the support you're using is that everyone is dutiful always, that means Kant is wrong for saying certain actions are not dutiful. He directly says that there are motives which aren't good that people choose to follow.
>>911473
>***You made a little logical fallacy here, since he could've acted morally without KNOWINGLY acting morally. I oversaw this in my original remark, but this fallacy is ignored in this post here.
Woops, forgot the ONLY in "B) ONLY people who choose perform". It's not a fallacy, you're correct here, but it doesn't change the argument.
>>911547
>Emphasis on "and only if"; anyone doing something for any other motive can't be moral.
Yeah, but that doesn't change the argument. You're still saying "B_ante isn't given because it's the converse of A, therefore I might assume !B_cons". But only because B_ante implies B_cons it does not mean that !B_ante implies !B_cons (!). That would be abduction, a logical fallacy.
More like Emmanuel........... Kunt
>>910920
Honestly, the above discussion is utterly unnecessary, not to mention unnecessarilly complex. As Kant never bothered to actually pinpoint a specific origin of moral values, enough questioning WILL eventually bring to light the contradiction of a point justifying itself.
In the end, it basically ammounts to this...
>Since they were not assigning moral value to duty for the sake of doing their moral duty, they were immoral to do so, as stated by point B in Kant's own words.
...being almost completely true, if only for the fact you should have used the term ammoral, wich indicates lack of moral values or influence, instead of immoral, wich indicates opposition to moral values or infliuence.
The following, ammended line is absolutely true:
Since they were not assigning moral value to duty for the sake of doing their moral duty, they were ammoral to do so, as stated by point B in Kant's own words.
On that sense, it is fair to say the assignment of original values is not "good".
That, however, does not mean the assignment of moral value is invalid, merely that it cannot be justified.
If the above seems contradictory, not to mention futile, that is so because it is. Kant's definition of moral is entirely subjective and independent of result, but resting entirely on the agent's values of specific nature (moral duty, moral motives, etc.) regardless of their origin.
To even further sum it up:
As long as you do something for the sake of your duty, that actions is correct, regardless of what or where it originated.
>>911547
>That's point 1 in my second post. If the support you're using is that everyone is dutiful always, that means Kant is wrong for saying certain actions are not dutiful.
I see your point. Of course, if you assume this, it's like adding an Axiom_0 that just states D1. So
Axiom 0: D1
Axiom A: D1 -> M
B_ante: M -> D
Clearly B_ante must always be true, and you arrive at "all decisions by an individual fulfill their moral duty", or D. Works even quicker if you assume D1 = D.
That would be a resolution, albeit logically equivalent to: >>911512
As for your "point 2", clearly that's circular logic of D -> M and M -> D, so that doesn't work. I believe it should be resolved now.
>>911591
>>911682
I'm still confused here. I went and reread some text and I'll try and write more formally just to make sure I haven't mislead you. In Kant's words;
>If [we abide by morals] then [we assign the quality of moral to motives]
>If and only if [we abide by morals] then [we are doing our duty]
and by extension
>If and only if [we abide by morals] then [we assign the quality of moral to motives]
plus
>If [you abide by morals] then [you must choose duty and only duty as your motive].
and
>duty is a motive
and I guess I should add
>If [something "has" value] then [that value was prescribed]
Sorry if it looks like I've added more to it, but from there I think I'm at least right to say that Kant requires imposed morals be eternal in order to hold. I'm pretty sure he admits to all morals being imposed, meaning the imposition must go backwards eternally lest it be unjustified.
>As for your "point 2", clearly that's circular logic of D -> M and M -> D, so that doesn't work. I believe it should be resolved now.
Are you saying the defense 2 I created on Kant's behalf is circular logic or that my attack on the defense 2 is circular logic?
>>911677
But then what about number 2 on my second post?
>The assignment of that value reaches backwards in time, much in the way the assignment of the word "square" can be applied to items fitting the current definition of "square" even if they existed before the word was assigned definition. Ergo, by assigning moral value to assigning moral value, you are justifying the assignment itself and all future ones.
>>911758
>number 2
Ah, no, I think I figured out how to beat Kant defense number 2. Justifying the assignment of moral value by assigning moral value to it is like going back in time to let your past self have a time machine. Where'd you get the time machine in the first place? It only works if you somehow already start in that loop, which seems... retarded? I'm actually still not sure.
>>911758
>But then what about number 2 on my second post?
Good question. What about it?
>>911806
Well, you said
>the contradiction of a point justifying itself
technically speaking, why can't a point justify itself circularly? Can I go back in time to give myself the time machine I used to go back in time or nah?
>>911817
A point can, indeed, justify itself circularly.
actually, ANY point can justify itself circularly.
As in:
A is so because A
therefore:
A point cannot justify itself circularly because a point cannot justify itself circularly.
>>911834
Oh, that's actually a pretty easy way to go about it
>ANY point can justify itself circularly
What if I just said "some" points can justify themselves circularly?
>>911853
Any self-justifying point is invalid because there is no possible method to prove it's veracity.
>>911758
>and by extension
>>If and only if [we abide by morals] then [we assign the quality of moral to motives]
No no, this is false. I guess this is where your statement B in your OP stems from. This, and you confused if with iff (= if and only if) on a second occasion too, namely ** (see below).
If and only if means you can substitute a sentence. Simple if-then doesn't. The only thing you can conclude from this is:
>If and only if [we abide by morals] then [we are doing our duty]
>If [we are doing our duty] then [we assign the quality of moral to motives]
>**If [we are doing our duty] then [we must choose duty and only duty as our motive]
It's quite different from the one in the OP. I can see no contradiction in here, nor any kind of "semantic confusion".
>Are you saying the defense 2 I created on Kant's behalf is circular logic
That.
