display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
48 ideas
| 3710 | The only purely good thing is a good will [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 393.1) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely the thought of Epictetus, that the will is the source of goodness, because morality resides in choices (as opposed to character, or states of affairs). |
| 3737 | The will is good if its universalised maxim is never in conflict with itself [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The will is absolutely good if it cannot be evil - that is, if its maxim, when made into a universal law, can never be in conflict with itself. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 437.81) |
| 3715 | Other causes can produce nice results, so morality must consist in the law, found only in rational beings [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Agreeable results could be brought about by other causes;…therefore nothing but the idea of the law in itself, which is present only in a rational being, can constitute that pre-eminent good which we call moral. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 401.15) |
| 20715 | It is basic that moral actions must be done from duty [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The first proposition of morality is that to have moral worth an action must be done from duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], p.19), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'Religion' | |
| A reaction: [p.19 in Beck tr] In Aristotle's account these are 'controlled' actions [enkrateia], which are a step below virtuous actions, which combine reason and pleasure. |
| 7105 | If 'maxims' are deeper underlying intentions, Kant can be read as a virtue theorist [Kant, by Statman] |
| Full Idea: It has been argued that by 'maxim' Kant does not mean a specific intention for some discrete act, but the underlying intention by which the agent orchestrates his numerous more specific intentions, ...which leads to a virtue reading of Kant. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Daniel Statman - Introduction to Virtue Ethics §7 | |
| A reaction: Kant admired virtue of character, and would want to fit it into the framework of his moral duties. Nevertheless a virtue would often seem to be beyond words, and principles seem to crumble in the face of complex cases. |
| 7625 | We can ask how rational goodness is, but also why is rationality good [Putnam on Kant] |
| Full Idea: We can reverse the terms of the comparison and ask not how rational is goodness, but why is it good to be rational? | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History | |
| A reaction: [Putnam doesn't mention Kant]. This seems to me to be the biggest question for Kant. See Idea 1403. The main point of tbe romantic movement, I take it, is that purely rational living does not bring happiness or fulfilment. |
| 4024 | Kant follows Rousseau in defining freedom and morality in terms of each other [Taylor,C on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant follows Rousseau in defining freedom and morality essentially in terms of each other. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §20.2 | |
| A reaction: An interesting comment on the modern tendency to overvalue freedom at the expense of the other civic virtues. |
| 3735 | Men are subject to laws which are both self-made and universal [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Man is subject only to laws which are made by himself and yet are universal. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 432.73) |
| 3724 | A categorical imperative sees an action as necessary purely for its own sake [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself apart from its relation to a further end. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 414.39) |
| 3714 | Dutiful actions are judged not by purpose, but by the maxim followed [Kant] |
| Full Idea: An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim according to which it is decided upon. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 399.13) |
| 5295 | Kant was happy with 'good will', even if it had no result [Kant, by Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Kant was satisfied with "good will" alone, even if it remained entirely without result. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by K Marx / F Engels - The German Ideology §II | |
| A reaction: Kant is obviously a million miles away from Marxist pragmatism. And yet the members of the revolutionary class can only be identified and endorsed if they show a particular kind of will. |
| 6695 | Kant has to attribute high moral worth to some deeply unattractive human lives [Kant, by Graham] |
| Full Idea: An implausible and uncomfortable conclusion to be drawn from Kant's conception of morality is that we must attribute high moral worth to deeply unattractive human lives. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: Graham quotes a loathsome character from a Victorian novel, who coldly 'does her duty'. Indeed it might be that a robot could be programmed with the categorical imperative (though it would need a table of values first). Virtue theory is the answer. |
| 8028 | Kantian duty seems to imply conformism with authority [MacIntyre on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Anyone educated into the Kantian notion of duty will (so far) have been educated into easy conformism with authority. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: The Nazi Eichmann cited Kant at his trial for mass murder. I'm not sure the criticism is fair. There are surely times when the categorical imperative will go quite contrary to what the irrational authorities are implementing? |
| 22441 | The law will protect you if you tell a truth which results in murder [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If you have by a lie prevented someone bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you keep strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.29) | |
| A reaction: Shocking, from a supposedly great thinker. Cowardly hiding behind a perverse law. What would Kant do if the law were changed, to condemn someone who told a truth which would probably lead to a murder? Would he accept a jail sentence? |
| 3718 | Telling the truth from duty is quite different from doing so to avoid inconvenience [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To tell the truth for the sake of duty is something entirely different from doing so out of concern for inconvenient results. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 402.18) |
| 3723 | There are no imperatives for a holy will, as the will is in harmony with moral law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: For the divine or holy will there are no imperatives: 'I ought' is here out of place, because 'I will' is already of itself necessarily in harmony with the law. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 414.39) |
| 21060 | It can't be a duty to strive after the impossible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It would not be a duty to strive after a certain effect of our will if this effect were impossible in experience. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (True in Theory, but not in Practice [1792], Intro) | |
| A reaction: 'Ought implies can' has become a familiar slogan. The quickest way to get shot of a tiresome duty is to persuade yourself that it is impossible. The seemingly impossible is occasionally achieved. |
| 8026 | Almost any precept can be consistently universalized [MacIntyre on Kant] |
| Full Idea: With sufficient ingenuity, almost every precept can be consistently universalized. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: A concise statement of J.S.Mill's point (Idea 3762). The point is that Kant seems to allow burglary, as long as you don't complain when you are burgled. What sort of maxim would a suicidal mass murderer being willing to universalize? |
| 6185 | No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If my maxim is 'augment my property by all safe means', I can't make that a law allowing me to keep a dead man's loan, because no one would make a loan if that were the moral law. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§4) | |
| A reaction: This is a simple illustration of Kant's strategy and it shows clearly how, for all his talk of 'pure reason', his moral law is strongly guided by consequences, and that these can only judged by prior values - for example, that loans are a good thing. |
| 6187 | Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The form of universality is itself the determining ground of the will, …and from this limitation alone, and not from the addition of any exernal drive, the concept of obligation arises to extend the maxim of self-love also to the happiness of others. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§8) | |
| A reaction: This is the heroic and optimistic part of Kant's philosophy, the attempt to derive altruism from pure reason. The claim seems to be that maxims don't motivate until they have been universalised. I fear that only altruism could add such motivation. |
| 15673 | The intuition behind the categorical imperative is that one ought not to make an exception of oneself [Kant, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative is supposed to capture the widespread intuition that one ought not to make an exception of oneself. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.6:83 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. I always take the plain English version to be 'what if everybody did that?' Suppose I were to forgive everyone, except myself? |
| 8068 | Universalising a maxim needs to first stipulate the right description for the action [Anscombe on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant's rule about universalisable maxims is useless without stipulations as to what shall count as a relevant description of an action with a view to constructing a maxim about it. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by G.E.M. Anscombe - Modern Moral Philosophy p.176 | |
| A reaction: This is one of the key objections to Kant (along with his need for preliminary values). One man's 'terrorist' is another man's 'freedom fighter'. The charge adds up to Nietzsche's view, that Kant could never shake off his very conventional prejudices. |
| 8025 | The categorical imperative will not suggest maxims suitable for testing [MacIntyre on Kant] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the categorical imperative provides me with a test for rejecting proposed maxims; it does not tell me whence I am to derive the maxims which first provide the need for a test. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: Nice objection. 'What if we all stood on one leg for an hour (in this crisis)?' Question for Kant: what sort of maxims should we consider, when faced with a dilemma. Mill will obviously suggest happiness as a target. Good of society? My own good? |
| 8027 | I can universalize a selfish maxim, if it is expressed in a way that only applies to me [MacIntyre on Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we enquire whether I can consistently universalize the maxim 'I may break my promises only when.....', the gap can be filled by a description devised so that it will apply to my present circumstances, but to very few others. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: Another good objection to Kant. There is just a huge problem with how you state the maxim under discussion. One man's 'terrorist' is another man's 'freedom fighter'. 'Do everything possible to implement the will of God'. |
| 3728 | Suicide, false promises, neglected talent, and lack of charity all involve contradictions of principle [Kant, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Kant's four illustrations of the Categorical Imperative are: the contradiction of suicide, the contradiction of false promises, the contradiction of neglecting your talents, and the contradiction of neglecting charity. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 422.53) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 22008 | Always treat yourself and others as an end, and never simply as a means [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Act in such a way that you always treat humanity whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], AA429 p.96), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 02 | |
| A reaction: This sets up the Kingdom of Ends. Note that this does not prohibit using people as a means. It just asks you to respect waiters and shop assistants. It seems to say you should not treat 'your own person' merely as a means. Prostitution? |
| 22009 | Morality is the creation of the laws that enable a Kingdom of Ends [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Morality consists in the relation of all action to the making of laws whereby alone a kingdom of ends is possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], AA434 p.102), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 02 | |
| A reaction: Each individual gives themselves a law in the categorical imperative. Presumably the kingdom of ends is the convergence of these laws, because the categorical imperative has to be rational. |
| 4413 | The categorical imperative smells of cruelty [Nietzsche on Kant] |
| Full Idea: The categorical imperative smells of cruelty. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals II.§6 | |
| A reaction: I presume this is because it is so pure and impersonal. Seems harsh. Nowadays we don't think pure just has to be cruel, but Nietzsche may have assumed it had to be. |
| 3716 | Act according to a maxim you can will as a universal law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 402.17) |
| 3727 | Act as if your maxim were to become a universal law of nature [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The universal imperative may also run as follows: 'Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature'. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 421.52) |
| 3719 | If lying were the universal law it would make promises impossible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I can indeed will to lie, but I can by no means will a universal law of lying; for by such a law there could properly be no promises at all. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 403.19) |
| 3762 | Why couldn't all rational beings accept outrageously immoral rules of conduct? [Mill on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any logical or physical impossibility in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism Ch.1 |
| 22050 | The maxim of an action is chosen, and not externally imposed [Kant, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Kant does not dictate what the maxim (the principle) of my action should be, and this is the crux. The individual has to decide the basis for their actions, rather than have it imposed on them, which differentiates us from the world of nature. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: Apparenty this inspired the Romantic era (the Age of Freedom?) just as much as the French Revolution. It is the chief doctrine of extreme individualism - except that the maxim chosen should be one on which rational beings should agree. |
| 6694 | Always treat humanity as an end and never as a means only [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another always as an end and never as a means only. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: Does this really mean that I can't just negligently buy a newspaper without making an effort to respect its seller? How do I ensure that I treat myself as an end, and don't slip into treating myself as a means? What would that be like? Prostitution? |
| 3731 | Rational beings necessarily conceive their own existence as an end in itself [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Rational nature exists as an end in itself; this is the way in which a man necessarily conceives his own existence. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 429.66) |
| 6201 | Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: The worry here is that Kant has set up an exam that you have to pass before you can be treated as a moral end. Animals and the ecosystem will fail the exam, and even some human beings will be borderline cases. We should respect everything. |
| 5605 | Moral blame is based on reason, since a reason is a cause which should have been followed [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Moral blame is grounded in the law of reason, which regards reason as a cause that, regardless of all the empirical conditions, could have and ought to have determined the conduct of the person to be other than it is. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B583/A555) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a description of akrasia, in which case it is hard to see how a reason is a cause if it doesn't actually produce the result it judges to be right. Kant is an intellectualist about morality, but not about practical reason, it seems. |
| 5632 | Moral laws are commands, which must involve promises and threats, which only God could provide [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Everyone regards moral laws as commands, which they could not be if they did not connect consequences with their rule a priori, and thus carry with them promises and threats, which must lie in a necessary being as the highest good. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B839/A811) | |
| A reaction: This reveals the thinking of Kant's moral argument for God rather more nakedly than elsewhere. |
| 4345 | For Kant, even a person who lacks all sympathy for others still has a motive for benevolence [Kant, by Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Kant, we may suppose, would say that if a man were 'cold in temperament and indifferent to the sufferings of others', he would still find in himself a source that would enable him to do what is benevolent. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This identifies a strong appeal of Kant's theory - that whether we are morally good should not be a matter of luck in our upbringing or natural temperament. How is the vicious person to be saved, if not by reason? |
| 4251 | If we are required to give moral thought the highest priority, this gives morality no content [Williams,B on Kant] |
| Full Idea: The Kantian view of what is important is that people should give moral considerations the highest deliberative priority, which Hegel attacked because it gives moral thought no content. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This points towards empathy and compassion as motivators, rather than reason, because there is some content to the morality, which calls out to us. |
| 16004 | If Kant lives by self-administered laws, this is as feeble as self-administered punishments [Kierkegaard on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant thought that man is his own law - he binds himself under the law which he gives himself. This is how lawlessness or experimentation is established. This is no more rigorously earnest than Sancho Panza's self-administered blows to his own ass. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785]) by Søren Kierkegaard - The Journals of Kierkegaard JP-I, 188 | |
| A reaction: It really is tempting to go easy on yourself rather than on others. Kant had the right ideas, but human beings aren't as disciplined as the categorical imperative requires. [SY] |
| 3711 | Only a good will makes us worthy of happiness [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A good will seems to constitute the indispensable condition of our very worthiness to be happy. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 393.2) |
| 3713 | The function of reason is to produce a good will [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Since reason has been imparted to us as a practical power, which thus influences the will, its true function must be to produce a will which is good. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 396.7) |
| 3729 | Our inclinations are not innately desirable; in fact most rational beings would like to be rid of them [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Inclinations, as a source of needs, are so far from having an absolute value to make them desirable for their own sake that it must rather be the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 428.65) |
| 4344 | Actions where people spread happiness because they enjoy it have no genuine moral worth [Kant] |
| Full Idea: There are many spirits of so sympathetic a temper that they find an inner pleasure in spreading happiness around them. ..I maintain that an action of this kind, however right and amiable it may be, has still no genuinely moral worth. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], p.66) | |
| A reaction: We understand what he means (that principle is everything), but this still seems a big hole in his account, one which drives us to Aristotle's sensible views about what a nice person is really like. |
| 6186 | A holy will is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A holy will is one which is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§7) | |
| A reaction: If such a will is 'incapable' of conflicting with moral law, it will not need to think or assess before action. This means that Kant's moral ideal can ultimately exclude the free-thinking intellect. Kant is describing a state of true Aristotelian virtue. |
| 6195 | Reason cannot solve the problem of why a law should motivate the will [Kant] |
| Full Idea: How a law in itself can be the direct motive of the will (which is the essence of morality) is an insoluble problem for the human reason. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III) | |
| A reaction: If that is the great man's final word, then it is tempting to switch to an empirical moral theory, such as that of Hobbes or Hume or E.O. Wilson, which starts from what motivations are available, and builds morality up from that. |
| 21062 | The will's motive is the absolute law itself, and moral feeling is receptivity to law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The will must have motives. But these are not objects of physical feeling as predetermined ends in themselves. They are none other than the absolute law itself, and the will's receptivity to it as an absolute compulsion is known as moral feeling. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (True in Theory, but not in Practice [1792], 1Bb) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like our natural motivation to get the right answer when doing arithmetic, which is the innate motivation towards truth. I once heard it said that truth is the only value. So why does Donald Trump fail to value truth? |