OUGHT from IS is Possible

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Skepdick
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:46 am The above is not philosophy-proper which requires sound justifications for whatever one proposes.
Justification suffers from the OUGHT problem too, you clown.

I propose that we ought to end slavery. What ought to justify my ought?

What ought to be an objective standard for justification?
What ought to be an objective standard for soundness?
What ought to be an objective standard for reason?
What ought to be an objective standard for knowledge?
What ought to be an objective standard for philosophy-proper?

What ought to be an objective standard for choosing between competing (and even conflicting) objective standards?

There is zero pragmatism to your approach.
surreptitious57
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by surreptitious57 »

Age wrote:
What way do bad arguments educate
They demonstrate how not to argue and so in that respect they are every bit as valuable as good arguments if not more so
Good arguments may be the only ones one wants to make but one has to know bad ones too in order to avoid making them
surreptitious57
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by surreptitious57 »

Empiricism ought to be the objective standard for soundness
Falsification ought to be the objective standard for knowledge
Absolute necessity ought to be the objective standard for justification
Logical and moral consistency ought to be the objective standards for reason
Rigorous argumentation ought to be the objective standard for proper philosophy
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

odysseus wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:00 pm
Veritas Aequitas
I spent 3 years full time reading and analyzing Kant.
I have read the major and later works of all the 'popular' philosophers, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Heidegger, Wittgenstein [not Tractatus {analytical not my taste} but later work -On Certainty'] and many more.
I often receive accusations "you have not read this and that philosopher", so I make it a point to read and understand whatever I am accused of not having read of the popular philosophers. I admit I don't have them all on my finger tips at present but I can easily refresh when needed to.

Kant didn't understand 'ethics'??
I am certain you are speaking without reading all of Kant's book on the subject.
In the above you are still insisting Kant is a rationalist when I have explained Kant after reading Hume abandoned pure rationalism and became a blended rationalist-empiricist.

It is often claimed by 'expert' on Kant, one need 3 years full time or 5 years part-time to fully understand Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Thus more time to read the full range of all of Kant's books on philosophy.
Even if you have read them, I am aware 80% of those who read Kant seriously do not understand Kant fully. My background is Eastern Philosophy which tie in nicely with Kantian Philosophy.

All of this is ad hominem.

If you think Kant has the key to the nature of ethics, then defend this against my claim that Kant defends an empty rationalism that has no account of human motivation. Keep in mind that my argument, which I will gladly share with you if you decide proceed properly, is that reason conceived apart from the world of actual value, where the suffering and the joys are living actualities, cannot present the nature of ethics. Kant may have a fair point about how we reason morally regarding actual problems and I certainly agree with his kingdom of ends, the treating others as ends and never a means (though we do this all the time. See Buber's I and Thou; see Levinas for insights on this), but none of this amounts to a theory that puts its finger on the essence of ethics, which is value. Kant is just wrong to say that an ethical act is never grounded in desire and is always about duty. This begs the question, in fact, all of it does: why should one ever want at all to do the right thing? How can duty be the singular priority if duty's motivation is altogether absent?

Spare me your resume. Help me understand why Kant is right, and please do not tell me about the wisdom of the golden rule. Tell why he is right vis a vis my specific objection above. (Always a ground for suspicion when an interlocutor changes the subject to something she CAN handle as opposed to attending to the argument at hand.)
Resume??
You are the one who insinuated and accused [with arrogance] I have not read this or that philosopher, thus my response is appropriate.

I mentioned it is commonly acknowledge by the so-called experts in Kant that one need 3 years full time or 5 years part time to understand Kant fully and thoroughly.
Thus it is impossible for me to convince you of Kant's view totally especially when your defense mechanism is already triggered into confirmation bias mode.

However, one general perspective view is one need to shift into [away from what is commonly understood by many of Kant] is, Kant's approach is based on the System Approach [system theory] to Morality and Ethics. Note the following generic model of a system.

Image

As such one need to understand Kant thoroughly and determine where the elements of his moral philosophy fit into the essential parts of the system.

For a system to work, one must start off with FIXED objectives [subject to change if necessary] otherwise the control feedback will go crazy if the objectives are subjective like those of consequentialism and utilitarianism.

These FIXED objectives [hierarchical] are the absolute moral rules and maxims that Kant justified. Kant stated these moral absolutes are not enforceable but merely used as guide to put the moral system into systematized actions and progress.

Kant did not [NEVER] insist such moral absolutes are God given, i.e. deontological, thus these moral absolutes [as reasoned and justified] are subject to scrutiny and improvements if there are room for them to be improved upon.
Kant moral absolutes are not absolutely-absolute, thus open to possible change, but as they are, they so well grounded and justified philosophically, there no likely hood of changes.

There is no such thing as absolute moral facts which are merely claimed by theists grounded on faith upon an illusory God. Non-theists should not be blindly be entrapped into this vein of thought and argument which is false from the strart.

Kant's model also incorporates consequentialism and utilitarianism elements as sub-systems.

As I had demonstrated the UN is applying such a Kantian model but on a VERY VERY crude basis [an estimated 10% of Kant's], but yet it is producing results [value]. Slavery is still going on but at least ALL nations has agreed to the no-slavery ought and enforced it with laws but note this is more political not Kantian morality and ethics.

This is why I am discussing the concept of a full and complete moral and ethical system in alignment with Kant's moral ideas.

Whatever philosopher's Moral and Ethics philosophy you read of, try putting their elements into a system and you will find there are lots of holes within their proposals.
Most of their moral and ethic model are not systematic, i.e. it does not have fixed moral objective to start with as guides thus the control feedback process will go bonkers and thus no room for improvement.

The theistic moral model has fixed moral objectives, but it is deontological and too rigid plus it is enforced by God's threats and fear of hellfire. The theistic moral model is more like a political enforcement of laws rather than a natural moral and ethical model.

I don't want to waste time going into the details but I hope the over view I presented is sufficient for you to get an idea to change your existing rigid understanding of Kant's Morality and Ethics.
If you want to grasp Kant fully, you need to read his works directly [not from secondary sources] and there is no short-cut to the necessary 3 years full time [25% less if you are genius].
odysseus
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by odysseus »

Veritas Aequitas
I did explicitly ask you to address my question, didn't I? I said, "Always a ground for suspicion when an interlocutor changes the subject to something she CAN handle as opposed to attending to the argument at hand."
My stated objection is this: "Kant is just wrong to say that an ethical act is never grounded in desire and is always about duty. This begs the question, in fact, all of it does: why should one ever want at all to do the right thing? How can duty be the singular priority if duty's motivation is altogether absent?"
Look at it like this: If a person has a moral situation to deal with, then s/he is supposed to be able to produce the solution, or the best solution possible, by consulting the categorical imperative to see if a given possibility for action could be willed to be a universal law. How does one make such a determination? I may will universalizing keeping promises, but why would I do this? To maintain the confidence society has among its people so lying does not become common and doubt and suspicion undermine relationships, or something like that. But why would I want this, a society of mutual trust over doubt? You see where this is leading: ultimately, there is caring (take a look at Heidegger and Dewey. They both argue that caring, the "consummatory" structure of experience for Dewey, is an integral part of all experiences), perhaps self interest, perhaps compassion, perhaps something! But there is no escaping motivation and Kant argues " a maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. How can inclination possibly be removed from any action at all? Not possible. If Kant is right about duty, then true moral acts are simply impossible.

So, I said this in a briefer form and asked you to be sure to answer as asked, not what you pleased. Did you? You wrote:
For a system to work, one must start off with FIXED objectives [subject to change if necessary] otherwise the control feedback will go crazy if the objectives are subjective like those of consequentialism and utilitarianism.

These FIXED objectives [hierarchical] are the absolute moral rules and maxims that Kant justified. Kant stated these moral absolutes are not enforceable but merely used as guide to put the moral system into systematized actions and progress.

Kant did not [NEVER] insist such moral absolutes are God given, i.e. deontological, thus these moral absolutes [as reasoned and justified] are subject to scrutiny and improvements if there are room for them to be improved upon.
Kant moral absolutes are not absolutely-absolute, thus open to possible change, but as they are, they so well grounded and justified philosophically, there no likely hood of changes.

There is no such thing as absolute moral facts which are merely claimed by theists grounded on faith upon an illusory God. Non-theists should not be blindly be entrapped into this vein of thought and argument which is false from the strart.

Kant's model also incorporates consequentialism and utilitarianism elements as sub-systems.
Not so far. But another objection I have to Kant is that he cannot avoid consequentialism in the determining of whether or not something should be universalized. In answering the question if something should or shouldn't, how does one avoid consequences in the thinking? You are supposed to enlighten me on this.

The question is not about absolutes. The categorical imperative issues from the rational nature of reason itself and has the same disinterested nature as the categories of pure reason found in the Critique of Pure Reason. But, of course, we cannot know from whence these come. Absolutes are not given outside what a critique shows us. Beyond this is empty dialectics.

As I had demonstrated the UN is applying such a Kantian model but on a VERY VERY crude basis [an estimated 10% of Kant's], but yet it is producing results [value]. Slavery is still going on but at least ALL nations has agreed to the no-slavery ought and enforced it with laws but note this is more political not Kantian morality and ethics.

This is why I am discussing the concept of a full and complete moral and ethical system in alignment with Kant's moral ideas.

Whatever philosopher's Moral and Ethics philosophy you read of, try putting their elements into a system and you will find there are lots of holes within their proposals.
Most of their moral and ethic model are not systematic, i.e. it does not have fixed moral objective to start with as guides thus the control feedback process will go bonkers and thus no room for improvement.

The theistic moral model has fixed moral objectives, but it is deontological and too rigid plus it is enforced by God's threats and fear of hellfire. The theistic moral model is more like a political enforcement of laws rather than a natural moral and ethical model.
What? First, not responsive to my objection at all. Second, If you are going to talk about Kant's moral theory, you need to talk about reason and universalizing maxims, the duty and the kingdom of ends, and so on. I mean, read the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. What are You talking about?
I don't want to waste time going into the details but I hope the over view I presented is sufficient for you to get an idea to change your existing rigid understanding of Kant's Morality and Ethics.
If you want to grasp Kant fully, you need to read his works directly [not from secondary sources] and there is no short-cut to the necessary 3 years full time [25% less if you are genius].
But I've studied the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysics of Morals. I know what he is about. All you have here is scattered thinking. Tell me something in response to my objection.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by FlashDangerpants »

surreptitious57 wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:26 pm
Age wrote:
What way do bad arguments educate
They demonstrate how not to argue and so in that respect they are every bit as valuable as good arguments if not more so
Good arguments may be the only ones one wants to make but one has to know bad ones too in order to avoid making them
Indeed. Take a brief look at the OP here and you can see a very severe example of some logical errors that are widespread and should be learned from. Mr Aquafresh even started with a sensible idea - presenting the argument in a simplified form with an explicit list of premises and the conclusion. There's a reason why you are forced to do this for the first few weeks when you study philosophy, it helps the author to spot errors in their own thinking.

In this instance, that didn't help for some reason. It isn't clear whether he thinks he has presented a three premise argument or a syllogism with some unquestionable axiom in the middle. But a valid syllogism along those line would be
All humans are living creatures.
Living creatures have a desire to live
Therefore all humans desire to live.
It's obviously untrue, the minor premise is bollocks, some people want to die. But that syllogism is valid because it has an actual relationship between major and minor premise that that allows for the conclusion to be derived from those premises such that if both are true then the conclusion must also be true. Nobody needs to spend 8 hours a day for three years reading Kant to understand that sort of thing.

He wants a massively more meaningful conclusion than that, but without having to put more meaningful inputs into the premises. That's why he screwed the pooch so badly. So what went logically wrong with Vestibule Easterbunny's argument?

Unfortunately what he presented is a false syllogism, or an invalid three premise arg. with a major premise that ALL humans are living beings as above...
The minor premise that MOST humans don't want to be killed (the most part there is presented as a highly artifical "All, but with some exceptions") is true. Then it segues to an unsupported, question begging, statement not to do unto others....
All before concluding that therefore we ought not to kill each other.
Given what he did to the minor premise though, it should technically be that we ought only to kill each other in order to commit suicide.
But what is the unsupported statement doing in the middle of such an argument? It can't be there, it either is irrelevant if the conclusion does not depend on it, or else it is a premise.

So to break it down a little further...
IF all humans are living creatures
And IF all living creatures want to live (except those that wish to die)
And IF we ought not to unto others that which we do not want done to us
THEN we should live according to the maxim that we probably shouldn't kill each other except when we want to be killed ourselves.

The result of formatting the argument correctly is quite clearly that the is/ought problem has not been answered here. Admittedly everybody with basic philosophical competence could see that imediately anyway without having to do the long division, but there it is.

He failed to link the major and minor premise correctly in order to derive the conclusion as he wrote it. He didn't realise the bit about the golden rule is not a conclusion so it must be a premise because that is no place to just shove an assumption. But overwhelmingly, the real problem is arrogance, laziness and an absolute lack of critical thinking skills.

Vestigial Areolas is not the only one on this forum attempting to clumsily leverage bland little premises into splicy hot conclusions, it's an epidemic. A cultivated understanding of how those errors come about would really benefit some of those guys. Some might suggest Age is one of them.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

odysseus wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 5:08 am Veritas Aequitas
I did explicitly ask you to address my question, didn't I? I said, "Always a ground for suspicion when an interlocutor changes the subject to something she CAN handle as opposed to attending to the argument at hand."
My stated objection is this: "Kant is just wrong to say that an ethical act is never grounded in desire and is always about duty. This begs the question, in fact, all of it does: why should one ever want at all to do the right thing? How can duty be the singular priority if duty's motivation is altogether absent?"

Look at it like this: If a person has a moral situation to deal with, then s/he is supposed to be able to produce the solution, or the best solution possible, by consulting the categorical imperative to see if a given possibility for action could be willed to be a universal law. How does one make such a determination? I may will universalizing keeping promises, but why would I do this? To maintain the confidence society has among its people so lying does not become common and doubt and suspicion undermine relationships, or something like that. But why would I want this, a society of mutual trust over doubt? You see where this is leading: ultimately, there is caring (take a look at Heidegger and Dewey. They both argue that caring, the "consummatory" structure of experience for Dewey, is an integral part of all experiences), perhaps self interest, perhaps compassion, perhaps something! But there is no escaping motivation and Kant argues " a maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. How can inclination possibly be removed from any action at all? Not possible. If Kant is right about duty, then true moral acts are simply impossible.

So, I said this in a briefer form and asked you to be sure to answer as asked, not what you pleased. Did you? You wrote:
You got the wrong understanding of the starting point with Kant's Morality and Ethics.

Kant's Morality and Ethics is never based a casuistry approach.
Yes, Kant did provide some examples merely to expound his principles but they are not meant for an individual to find solutions to specific situations.
In real life there is an infinite combinations of moral scenarios.
In Kant's system of morality and ethics there is no provision for an individual to weigh and make moral and ethical decisions.

Kant's system of morality and ethics is not meant to be totally implemented in our present conditions. Kant's system cannot be normalized at present but if humanity starts now with the foundations there is hope it will bear fruits in 50-100 years' time. It may even take 100-200 years to mature.
Note Kant's Third Categorical Imperative re Autonomy.
  • Thus the third practical principle follows [from the first two] as the ultimate condition of their harmony with practical reason: the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will.
When Kant's system is operating normally, the average moral quotient [preferably 100%] would have to reach 10,000 or more if the present is 100.
At that state, the individuals will not have to decide the moral actions [refer to casuistry precedents] for any actions but rather they will act spontaneously and the moral and ethical consequence will be optimal within the constraints in that situations.

As you can see, your understanding of Kant's Moral System is that it can be applied normally based on current moral state of humans. That is wrong.
For a system to work, one must start off with FIXED objectives [subject to change if necessary] otherwise the control feedback will go crazy if the objectives are subjective like those of consequentialism and utilitarianism.

These FIXED objectives [hierarchical] are the absolute moral rules and maxims that Kant justified. Kant stated these moral absolutes are not enforceable but merely used as guide to put the moral system into systematized actions and progress.

Kant did not [NEVER] insist such moral absolutes are God given, i.e. deontological, thus these moral absolutes [as reasoned and justified] are subject to scrutiny and improvements if there are room for them to be improved upon.
Kant moral absolutes are not absolutely-absolute, thus open to possible change, but as they are, they so well grounded and justified philosophically, there no likely hood of changes.

There is no such thing as absolute moral facts which are merely claimed by theists grounded on faith upon an illusory God. Non-theists should not be blindly be entrapped into this vein of thought and argument which is false from the strart.

Kant's model also incorporates consequentialism and utilitarianism elements as sub-systems.
Not so far. But another objection I have to Kant is that he cannot avoid consequentialism in the determining of whether or not something should be universalized. In answering the question if something should or shouldn't, how does one avoid consequences in the thinking? You are supposed to enlighten me on this.
Note I stated above;

Kant's model also incorporates consequentialism and utilitarianism elements as sub-systems.

how did you missed that?

Kant implied, if killing another human being is not universalized it imply 'human can kill another human'.
By logic, that will lead to the extinction of the human species given the last man surviving will not last long.

That is the moral aspects of Kant's Morality and Ethics.
Kant confined 'morality' to only the reasoning and justification of the absolute moral principles.

To Kant, ethics represent the applied and practical aspects.
Here one can apply consequentialism and utilitarianism to be limited by the overriding categorical imperatives.

While the Categorical Imperative are absolute and the average human moral quotient is raised to 10,000 relative the present 100, humans, being human can never be perfect and thus in the applied ethics we need to compare the consequences against the moral absolute to general the moral gap [variance] as an indicator for improvements, e.g. perhaps there is a need to improve the average Moral Quotient to 15,000.

I will not go into your other questions because they are based on a non-starter with your off tangent understanding of Kant's Moral and Ethical System.
Skepdick
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:50 am Kant implied, if killing another human being is not universalized it imply 'human can kill another human'.
Human can kill another human - it's called self-defence.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:50 am By logic, that will lead to the extinction of the human species given the last man surviving will not last long.
Not by logic. By overzealous Kantian induction, which is effectively the slippery slope fallacy.

Killing another human is allowed. Right now. It's not leading to our extinction.
Age
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Age »

surreptitious57 wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:26 pm
Age wrote:
What way do bad arguments educate
They demonstrate how not to argue and so in that respect they are every bit as valuable as good arguments if not more so
But some people accept and believe some 'bad arguments' to be good, and then 'try to' use them as a good source for evidence or proof of things. Therefore, these bad arguments are not valuable at all. In fact they can be teaching and instilling the very thing that ought NOT be done.
surreptitious57 wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:26 pmGood arguments may be the only ones one wants to make but one has to know bad ones too in order to avoid making them
The only good arguments that I know of are sound, valid arguments, which, by definition, can not be refuted.

But how many of these ones are there in existence?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Immanuel Can »

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."

However, Kant was a teleologist. Alan Wood has argued this expertly. We see this particularly in his version of the CI that reads, "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." Unless one already knows what the telos (final purpose or value) of a person is, this is not compelling. Kant just thought we all knew.
Kant implied, if killing another human being is not universalized it imply 'human can kill another human'.
By logic, that will lead to the extinction of the human species given the last man surviving will not last long.
This misunderstands Kant's argument. He was not saying that universalizability WOULD happen, if we killed another person. He knew it would not. What he wanted us to do is to use universalizability as an heuristic, as an artificial test, to see if what we were doing was rational. He thought we all wanted to be rational, and that we would not write a rule for others that we would not impose (in principle) on ourselves.

But in this, Kant was incorrect. People love to write "rules" for others that they do not follow themselves. In fact, that's the whole point of lying, stealing or killing. In all cases people are trying to do something they know others will NOT do.

Kant would say, "That's irrational, and not according to the good will."

Many modern people would say, "Yeah? So what?"

But there is zero chance that if one person kills another, everybody in the world is going to kill everybody else. That argument is not only empirically incorrect, it completely misunderstands Kant's argument. Universalizability does not ever happen. It's only a mental strategy, a method for figuring out what might be Kantianly "right," if you're a person who reasons like Kant did and wants to be logically consistent.

No wonder, then, that Kant has had little real effect on how people do their moral judgment-making. Nobody says, "Gee...what would Kant think?"
odysseus
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by odysseus »

Immanuel Can

This misunderstands Kant's argument. He was not saying that universalizability WOULD happen, if we killed another person. He knew it would not. What he wanted us to do is to use universalizability as an heuristic, as an artificial test, to see if what we were doing was rational. He thought we all wanted to be rational, and that we would not write a rule for others that we would not impose (in principle) on ourselves.
One has to wonder if the CI is even a good heuristic, or intended to be. After all, he tells us up front that his purpose is not about good actions, but a good will. If a leader of one of two warring countries decides to sit down and negotiate for the good of the people, hers is not by Kants standard, a moral act. He writes, " That an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire."

The idea is clear: His is not a philosophy of actions, but of agency. A good will wills nothing more than the good and regardless of the consequences is good entirely on this basis. In ethical theory a line is drawn between agency and action. Bad actions can have a "good" agency, as when the man jumps into the water to save the child and ends up killing them both. good agency, bad action. Roman gladiatorials were evil things by our standards, yet it would be wrong to think these agents of moral behavior were thereby evil as they lived in a time when such things were common.

I don't think the Ci is much of a heiristic. Utility is far better, though here one wonders what atrocity will be committed next for the future better utility: a Third Reich? A Great America?

Practically speaking, the CI yields to what a "good will" will will into a universal law. But such wills are entangled in the world and such willing then becomes contingent and contextualized. No: Kant is not about good results at all. He is about agency, rational agency. The Good, for Kant, is a concept.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

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.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Immanuel Can »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 3:14 am You don't understand Kant at all.
If you knew me at all, you'd know how funny this line is. :D

The response just goes downhill from there, AV.

Happy trails.
surreptitious57
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by surreptitious57 »

Age wrote:
some people accept and believe some bad arguments to be good and then try to use them as a good source for evidence or proof of things
Therefore these bad arguments are not valuable at all . In fact they can be teaching and instilling the very thing that ought NOT be done
The problem there is with those using such arguments rather than the arguments themselves
Minds have free will so are at liberty to use them if they so wish but not everyone will do this
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: OUGHT from IS is Possible

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:44 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 3:14 am You don't understand Kant at all.
If you knew me at all, you'd know how funny this line is. :D

The response just goes downhill from there, AV.

Happy trails.
First fact is, you have not read Kant fully to understand his philosophy thoroughly.
I have shown your ignorance above.

How could you put words into Kant's mouth and insist Kant's Moral and Ethics system is not heuristics when Kant presented his approach on Moral and Ethics is based on the System Approach and heuristics.
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