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4 ideas
21431 | The love of man is required in order to present the world as a beautiful and perfect moral whole [Kant] |
Full Idea: Love of man is required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection, even if no account is taken of advantages (of happiness). | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 458 I.II) | |
A reaction: For me, this illustrates the basic problem with Kant. In the Groundwork he presents morality as arising from pure reason, deriving moral maxims from contradictions, but here we find a totally ungrounded assertion of grand traditional values. |
21437 | All morality directs the will to love of others' ends, and respect for others' rights [Kant] |
Full Idea: All moral relations of rational beings, which involve a principle of the harmony of the will of one with another, can be reduced to love and respect. Love reduces one's will to another's end, and respect to another's right. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 488 II) | |
A reaction: It all comes out too neat and tidy in Kant. Love doesn't merely focus on another person's 'ends', and respect should be for a lot more than another person's mere 'rights'. They'd have to be natural rights, because some societies restrict rights. |
13173 | Death is just the contraction of an animal [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Death is nothing but the contraction of an animal, just as generation is nothing but its unfolding. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Johann Bernoulli [1699], 1698.11.18) | |
A reaction: This is possibly the most bizarre view that I have found in Leibniz. He seemed to thing that if you burnt an animal on a bonfire, some little atom of life would remain among the ashes. I can't see why he would believe such a thing. |
21429 | The duty of love is to makes the ends of others one's own [Kant] |
Full Idea: The duty of love for one's neighbour can be expressed as the duty to make others' ends my own (provided they are not immoral). | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
A reaction: An interesting idea. Kant's remarks on love and respect seem distorted, to shoehorn them into his system of end/means and maxims. If I love someone, should I continually enquire what their current ends are? |