I looked for, and honestly, with the inclination towards actually finding, a disclosure of Kant’s three forms of the categorical imperative. I found different forms of imperatives, I found different formulations for arriving at kinds of imperatives, but nothing on categorical imperatives being of more than one form.

I have an idea as to the resolution of the condemned Aristotelian politician and the Kantian moral agent, but first I should need some help with what is meant by the three forms.

Thanks.

1) make sure the rule you adopt for your own action could be the rule for anyone's action. 2) Never use a person as a means.. 3) Always act so that your actions pass muster in heaven. Not in these word,but that's the substance of them.

Ahhhh...ok. Thanks.

From this, I would answer your original question in parts. First, they are very different, so better/worse and right/wrong are irrelevant.

Second, the politician’s duty is to respond to the empirical predicates more properly called ethics, whereas adherence to the categorical imperative is a duty of a subjective rationality and is more properly called morality. A politician is a very specific kind of subjective rationality insofar as his duty as politician is bound to the laws of his culture, but a subjective rationality in general, without regard to his culture, is bound only by his own moral law.

Third, and following necessarily from the second, a categorical imperative has much more legislative power as grounds for an individual moral law than constitutional authority has for merely a cultural administrative law. Disobedience of civil law makes one’s actions illegal; disobedience of a C.I. makes one’s actions immoral.

Anyway......my opinion only, of course.

I think the two duties are in tension in relation to each other but entail different perspectives according to whether one looks at the formation of community or the duty of an individual in the midst of one.

In the context of "cosmopolitan right", the universal good of all individuals is related to how all societies should tend toward being ordered but that is balanced by the need for politics as developing legitimacy in the direct intercourse of civic life. As Augustine observed, a republic is one in name only if it does not produce justice for its citizens. The two duties can work in harmony in this view of the world but disagree upon what any "political" order can attain and how it could be that world become a society of societies. There is also the discord between those who do or do not agree that "right action" is a universal in the sense of the categorical imperative.

The limits of the possible have a different aspect when viewed from the ground of personal experience. Proverb 16 begins with:

"The plans of the mind belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
but the Lord weighs the spirit"

This text suggests that many "universals" are some man's creation but not the place where they meet with others. I think that Aristotle would be comfortable with the "actuality" being observed here as a key element in the duty to act among other men rather than to live apart in one's thoughts. But how that place is also where the conscience of an individual may struggle against others makes thoughts political in way that is not encompassed in Aristotle's meaning of duty.

I think the two duties are in tension in relation to each other but entail different perspectives according to whether one looks at the formation of community or the duty of an individual in the midst of one. — Valentinus

Nice post!

Let's see: want and need, that I think of as being in the purview of politics, are in a sense internally generated, and if not so generated, don't exist. Duty, on the other hand, seems to originate externally. But you seem to tie them together as both being duties. The division into community and individual is interesting. Does a community, taken as a collective political entity, have any duties? Can it have duties?

Let's define "duty" as a debt imposed by reason paid by appropriate action. What I want to avoid is any understanding of "duty" as a code word for merely finding means. If I want an expensive wristwatch, I may have to work an extra job to afford it, but I can scarcely be said to have any duty to get that job (or buy that watch). And a city should have a program of trash collection, but I don't see that as a duty so much as a necessary task - both a need and a want.

The notion of differing perspective implies a different viewpoint, not necessarily a different viewer. Do you have a clearer view as to the reconciliation of the two? Can we also call it pragmatism v. principle?

Thank you for giving thought to my comment.

Let's see: want and need, that I think of as being in the purview of politics, are in a sense internally generated, and if not so generated, don't exist. Duty, on the other hand, seems to originate externally. But you seem to tie them together as both being duties — tim wood

It is true that duty means something that is owed to others and is, in that regard, external. The origin of the necessity, for Aristotle, anyway, is framed by his observation that:

"Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."

Needing something for myself and being involved with the needs of other people appears to be the price of admission to the place in between a beast and a god. What is required to live in this region is accepting that obligations to others and needs for oneself are all mixed up in the shared life that society demands. The "external" obligations get mixed up with personal desires.

While Kant's focus on a categorical imperative is presented as something only an individual can be obligated by, it assumes a connection, or even an identity, with what other people are experiencing. The consequences of this point of view compared to Aristotle's encompasses all kinds of considerations beyond the scope of my comparison. But I think they both concern figuring out what is the best thing to do and how does a person build an understanding of what that is. Being neither a beast or a god, those two elements are bound up with each other.

Does a community, taken as a collective political entity, have any duties? Can it have duties? — tim wood

I believe it can have duties, but only if the collective understands itself as having obligations to other collectives. I think the generally accepted understanding between "cosmopolitan" versus "tribal" ways of life are directly related to senses of obligation. It is a mirror of immediately shared life.

Let's define "duty" as a debt imposed by reason paid by appropriate action. What I want to avoid is any understanding of "duty" as a code word for merely finding means. — tim wood

Agreed. Duty should be understood as taking responsibility for something as one's end. It is imposed but accepted freely. I think that both Aristotle and Kant would agree that slaves cannot have duties.

The notion of differing perspective implies a different viewpoint, not necessarily a different viewer. Do you have a clearer view as to the reconciliation of the two? Can we also call it pragmatism v. principle? — tim wood

Those are very good questions. I am going to take some time to think about. If one can get to some kind of reconciliation, it should only be after the differences have been explored. I will give it a shot.

My OP, but you seem to have taken the lead, and I'm pleased to follow. What I'm on about is resolving the question if the political man must be prepared to do even things that the ethical man or principled man cannot. I suppose he must, and thereby reason myself to believing that the political man and the other are different beings, and what they are respectively cannot co-exist in one man. Or, rather, can seem to for so long as the relationship is not pressed to the limit.

In 1930s Germany I suspect it was pressed to the limit and beyond - good men simply squeezed out. As well other places, perhaps Russia and China. Eastern Europe until 1992. And maybe generally a long time ago. It must seem as if the moral/ethical man is a relative newcomer on the stage of history. Which also goes to the conclusion that there (really) are good men and bad men, and that the bad ones find a home in politics. With exceptions. Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter I think were, are, good men. Actually, the bad man finds a home wherever the bad action leads to advantage. Hmmm.

I don't feel far enough ahead to lead.

In terms of comparing the search for the best order for society with the immediate experience of being involved as an individual in the midst of one, I don't think either Aristotle or Kant would separate the political and the ethical in the manner you describe. The resistance against evil polity is better expressed as a matter of conscience than a pattern where the virtue of a man is assumed to be consonant with the justice of a city. Is the better fit to the problem a result of learning more about how it all works or has the environment changed?

I may have to move even slower than I was doing before. The evil perceived in our last several generations blows my mind. I don't know if it is a recent development or something that recurs. My need to respect enormity is over against the desire to understand. My greatest fear is to find out I treated something large as something small.