PHIL 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Universal Rule, Deeper Understanding, Embezzlement
The Political Philosophy of Kant Session 6 April 20, 1967
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Now,
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good. We leave it at this and now ask Miss Perkins to read her paper. Oh,
Mrs. . . . No, there still [will be] a discussion. Yes?
Student: Oh, isn’t
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this difficulty you pointed out, isn’t it that Kant’s concept to some
extent giving up on straightening out the mess of experience and just directing yourself
towards “if the world were perfect” or “if in an afterlife things worked out as they
should” then
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[acting] according to the laws which would make them work out. I mean,
if you are acting on that principle, isn’t it to some extent giving up on trying to straighten
things out as they are?
LS:
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What would amount to giving up?
Same Student: For instance, you know, the example you gave about the woman who
really is going to die without the money. Or let’s say Plato’s example of if you have to
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return to a man what is due him, and he lends you firearms and then he goes crazy and
wants to kill himself, do you give back the firearms?
LS: But is not Plato’s argument of an entirely different character?
Same Student: Well, isn’t it—
LS:
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I mean, Kant would of course agree with Plato as a practical man, ya. But if we
listen to his statement of the moral problem as we have it understood hitherto, and we
can’t do more at the time—well, for the time being. What is Plato’s argument, or
Socrates’ argument? . . .
Same Student: Well, is it that you have to have a more profound understanding than
just—
LS: Of the situation, as we would say today? So in other words, the rule that you must
return deposits is only generally valid, not universally valid. But what is the ground for
the qualification? Because the rule to return deposits is based on an assumption that this
is a way in which you help your neighbor, ya? I mean, mutual loan and so on—ya,
helping your neighbor. And now if in a given case this action, returning deposits, would
mean harming your neighbor, then you would not do it. So in other words, the overall
rule which both lies at the bottom of the more specific rule, and of the exception to the
specific rule, would be a universal rule, would it not?
Same Student:
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Then in a man who would like to embezzle money, you look for a more
profound rule underlying the idea that you give money back to heirs. In other words, you
try to get a deeper understanding of why you would give money back to heirs and then
form a different rule as your universal rule.
LS:
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Ya, but then you are led first of all through an abyss of difficulties, namely, why is
it a humane or benevolent action to give money to people who will make very bad use of
The Political Philosophy of Kant Session 6 April 20, 1967
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it? . . . and you have first to go first through this; that is what Plato does, fundamentally,
whereas Kant does not do that.
Same Student: Yes, that is what I am saying. If you don’t undertake that responsibility to
do that, aren’t you saying to some extent, “Well, if we act reasonably, on this earth, it
doesn’t necessarily bring people happiness because rational actions aren’t in accord with
the experiential world, but with some ideal world in the life beyond.”
LS: Ya, but we have not yet heard of this, you know? Kant will bring in the future life.
But at this stage of the argument he has not yet referred to it . . .
Student: I’m not quite clear on Kant’s proof, what he says about lying. Was it because it
would be contradictory to commit an exception—?
LS:
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Ya,
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it would be impossible to transform your maxim on which you habitually act
into a law valid for all men, for all rational beings. For all rational beings.
Same Student: Well, then why wouldn’t it be just as valid to say “all men should lie and
that in this instance if I tell the truth it would invalidate that maxim?”
Because . . . universal . . .
LS: Then
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you would destroy confidence, of course.
Same Student: Well, then it rests upon something other than self-contradiction.
LS: Ya, but that is a point usually made by the critics of Kant, that the experiential
reasonings come in. But let me say at this time only this much.
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Even if there were such
a thing as an experiential reasoning in these examples we read and others which will
occur in the second section, there would still be this difference (the minimum one would
have to say): that the experiential reasoning is the ratio cognoscendi (I will translate that)
but not the ratio obligandi—meaning we can recognize our duty by making such
experiential considerations: “Is this compatible with human beings living together?” or
what have you. But we don’t do it for the sake of living together but for the sake of doing
our duty, because for the sake of living together we might do very immoral things—right
or wrong my country and all this kind of thing, ya?—whereas morality is then only the
reason of obligation.
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Now whether this is sufficient we must see. Now let us . . .
Student: I was just wondering whether Miss . . .’s point about the responsibility of
considering the whole situation is actually contained in what kind of a maxim you want
to state for your universalizing, because you have to state your maxim—
LS: Yes.
Same Student: And of course the maxims can be stated in very different ways.
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Depending on how general the maxim is, the maxim can take into account more or less of
the actual situation. In other words, one might—
Document Summary
We leave it at this and now ask miss perkins to read her paper. Same student: for instance, you know, the example you gave about the woman who really is going to die without the money. Ls:58 i mean, kant would of course agree with plato as a practical man, ya. But if we listen to his statement of the moral problem as we have it understood hitherto, and we can"t do more at the time well, for the time being. Same student: well, is it that you have to have a more profound understanding than just . So in other words, the rule that you must return deposits is only generally valid, not universally valid. I mean, mutual loan and so on ya, helping your neighbor. And now if in a given case this action, returning deposits, would mean harming your neighbor, then you would not do it.
