Now this is turning into pure nonsense. — Echarmion
which is what I was actually arguing against; andwhether you can add as many conditions as you like to a “maxim.” — Theologian
...not being a maxim because it is not of the form "if X then Y," then fine.absolve yourself of all responsibility for the actions of all other rational beings — Theologian
What is assumed about good and bad by starting from the fact that we are human beings that live together in a society? — Echarmion
Kant doesn't say this when he talks about the CI, though he did write about property and I don't think he ever questioned the idea of property. Whether or not Kant was correct in assuming that individual property is moral is a different question from the question of whether the CI is the correct standard to assess morality. — Echarmion
So, what is behind it? How does it get in? — Echarmion
But...
1. This is very different from
whether you can add as many conditions as you like to a “maxim.”
— Theologian
which is what I was actually arguing against — Theologian
The first is not expressed in the form "if X then Y," but I acknowledge it can be. "By any safe means" may be transformed to the X value as "if it is safe to do so." But this seems such a general condition as to be a virtually absent "X" to me.
Similarly so an X value that is "being in want of money," when the Y value is to go get some money. — Theologian
IF it is safe to do so, THEN I will absolve myself of all responsibility for the actions of all other rational beings.
There you go. Now it's a maxim. :smile: — Theologian
Otherwise... I think we may perhaps have reached the point where we may each agree that the other's posts speak for themselves, and require no further comment. — Theologian
It's more about good or bad about what a society should do and the relations of people in that society. That is an assumption inherent in the ideas of property, trustworthiness, etc. — schopenhauer1
But these are assumptions that the acting people have. They are not inbuilt into the CI. The thief assumes something about property, the oathbreaker something about oaths. People have assumptions, and so their maxims will include them. — Echarmion
Interesting. — Mww
So the thief who revels in a society of treachery, and the oathbreaker who wants a world of untrustworthiness... — schopenhauer1
and scrolling down a bit lower, we find: — Theologian
Are you noticing a pattern here? — Theologian
These maxims result in societies no sane person would want to live in though, hence they still fail the CI. Of course there are persons who'd genuinely want such circumstances, but they would not be accessible to morality, no matter how convincing. — Echarmion
Okay, so this is my point. Morality is then not really to do with the CI but something else beyond it, or prior to it. — schopenhauer1
You seem to be positing either some sort of moral sense, or socially-constructed agreement, or list of values that we all share and THIS becomes the source of the moral framework, not the CI itself. In fact, the CI presupposes that we already have a sense that hypocrisy is wrong. The CI does not therefore provide any of the actual morality, it's the values that we already have when we are applying the CI. — schopenhauer1
This is where then we should focus it would seem to me. He can then admit that really it is more of a hypothetical imperative- "If we want to maintain a certain type of society, and we do not want to be hypocrites about maintaining that society, then the standard of CI would apply". But again, the type of society, and not being hypocritical would have to be addressed and examined first as to why that counts as moral in the first place. — schopenhauer1
But the CI, being a fully general method, does not rely on us first establishing a certain type of society. It works on any possible society. So long as the members of that society have shared interests, it will end up providing a framework to further those interests. That's the idea, anyways. All that you need to do is the ability to put your self in other people's shoes, as the saying goes. If everyone does that, and everyone's minds work roughly the same way, the result is that everyone ends up with roughly the same rules. — Echarmion
It may indeed be the case, that the categorical imperative only has any meaning for those rational agents that think themselves in possession of a transcendental causality. — Mww
I think we would be getting closer if we mentioned the actual things that people value- relationships, physical pleasure, aesthetic pleasure, etc. The heuristic to see if one is violating a principle by which people obtain these things can be useful, but only if we understand what it is that people value, if that can even be ascertained. But then it is really a theory of value that comes first before talk of how a value may be contradicted. — schopenhauer1
But then, dear schopenhauer1, you're plunging directly into the unseemly waters of... utilitarianism! — Theologian
Otherwise known as .........wait for it........
............the transcendental illusion!!!!!! — Mww
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