Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:29 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:50 am
Note I stated above;
Kant's model also incorporates consequentialism and utilitarianism elements as sub-systems.
how did you missed that?
Kant was not a Consequentialist. He said the Categorical Imperative, "enjoins the conduct immediately," without reference to consequences. In fact, he deliberately eliminated Consequentialism as a moral option: “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, it is good in itself. Even if by utmost effort the good will accomplishes nothing, it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has full value in itself”.
In other words, no consequences. They don't figure into his reckoning; and if you put them in, you are actually acting immorally, according to Kant. You are not responding to duty but to pragmatic advantage. You are not acting on "the good will."
You don't understand Kant at all.
I have already stated Kant proposed the System Approach to Morality and Ethics in terms of Pure and Applied aspect respectively.
In the pure aspect, i.e. Morality, this is not supposed to be translated into action but merely the establishment of absolute moral rules as a
guide for the Moral and Ethical heuristical system. However Kant did apply consequentialism principles to justify the absolute moral maxims on a universal basis.
Because the absolute moral maxims are universalized as guides, the moral maxims don't apply to the individual's actions and consequences at the Moral aspects.
The individual's actions and consequences are considered with the ethics aspect of Kant's system.
- Note in nature, DNA all humans are encoded with the universal primal drives and instincts as a rule. Therefrom how this universal rule is to be optimized for humanity is controlled within a system and one of that is the Morality and Ethics system within.
For Kant, while Morality is the pure [as guides], Ethics is the aspect that is responsible to translate the absolute moral principles into action.
As I had stated such a system is similar to Pure and Applied Mathematics, Geometry and other fields of knowledge.
It is within practical ethics where consequentialism and utilitarianism are effected.
The CIs themselves are not heuristic but they are fixed guides for a heuristic moral and ethical system as I had explained many times.
How can a system be an efficient heuristic mechanism/system if there are no fixed target to enable actions to be improved towards?
As I had stated the control feedback system will go bonkers if there is no fixed target/objective/goal and they change all the time as in a purely consequentialism and utilitarianism moral & ethics system.
- Imagine a heating system where the expected temperature cannot be fixed to one's demand, but it erratic and changes drastically every second.
Kant's Moral and Ethical System is definitely a philosophy of action.
If we establish the absolute maxim 'no human can kill another human' period, no ifs and no buts as a guide, then compare what is going on in reality, that will generate a trigger for action.
On the individual basis, if a person has kill one human, then there is a
moral gap of between the ideal and actuality of one human or whatever the number of human the person has killed.
This moral gap is a motivator for action, i.e. the person has to take corrective action to ensure he don't kill another human to meet the objective of the absolute moral maxim re killing.
How the person is to be motivated to improve will require a complex set of processes to develop his moral conscience.
It may be too late to change some psychopathic murderers on an individual basis, but we can take preventive steps on a global humanity basis to ensure children do not grow up to be murderers and killers.
On a humanity basis, the absolute moral maxim 'no human can kill another human,' the expectation is ZERO killing in the world.
Now if the reality is 50,000 thousand humans killed by humans in a years in whatever the situation, then there is a automatic computed moral gap of 50,000 killed.
Then the task is for humanity on a global basis to strive to reduce that 50,000 to ZERO and this is the basis for action to be taken.
In reality, humanity will not be able to reduce the killing to ZERO in a short time, but if there is no absolute maxim on killing 'no humans can kill another human' there will not be any starting point to initiate and kick humanity into action.
Therefore Kant's Moral and Ethics System is intended to be heuristic of the highest order.
As I had stated for Kant's system to reach average operating efficiency there is a need to bring the average Moral Quotient of all humans to 15,000 if the average at present is 100. So there is a complex set of work and processes to be done here. I am optimistic this can be done given the existence of mirror neurons in increasing growth in humans plus other factors.
Your problem is you are stuck in the present and not think in terms of what is possible in the future.
Kant's Moral and Ethics system is very sound but it is only realizable in the future 100-200 years from the time we put the system into construction.
Note the improvement process of establishing the no-slavery ought in the UN took almost 100 years from when the convention was initiated and that is not exactly Kantian. However this is good sign a proper Kantian Moral and Ethics system can be established within humanity.