You're a smart guy - you must be to come up with yours. And deconstructing it tedious. But maybe a shorter way: there are lots of things wrong with it, and you see at least some of those ways, yes? Or is your thought experiment where you commit yourself and plant your flag? (It's not good ground; it cannot be held.)

Google definition of "freedom": the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. Freedom is precisely how it's been defined but the actual situation on the ground may vary. Read the fine print :joke:

On a more serious note, one has to draw a distinction between what we mean by freedom and to what degree we possess it. These two are entirely different things. One - the meaning of freedom - represents our conception, expectation, and perhaps even our hope and the other - the freedom we possess - is reality's constraining, modifying, limiting effect on us.

Of course you might say that the facts as they stand matter - we have to mind the consequences of how we act, speak, and think - and that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom. True but notice a simple fact. Would you call this situation, having to walk on eggshells as it were, always mindful of the consequences of our acts, speech, and thoughts, freedom? No, right? I rest my case. — TheMadFool

It certainly is not my fault if the masses are ignorant of reality and what reasoning has to do with knowing universal law and the importance of living by the laws of nature. :grin:

I am having a huge problem with the limited education we have had and the changed meanings of words and spell-check is especially horrifying. I am horrified by how technology has changed our understanding of words and appears to be restricting our awareness of concepts. You might want to reconsider what being technologically correct is doing to our understanding of life.

Your distinction between freedom and the freedom we possess is interesting, but when I open the present of your thought, the box is empty. It is a word game without substance because if we do not understand cause and effect and the limits of our freedom, things can go very wrong, so I don't think separating cause and effect thinking from our understanding of freedom is a good idea. Yes, I do say "the facts as they stand matter". :kiss:

" that tells an entirely different story of human "freedom" than that supposed in the definition of freedom."
:kiss: Please, consider what I said about technological correctness. I think education, as focused on technology as the education we have had, is not education for science, and that it is deadly. We have a culture change and I wish the discussion of that could expand. We are about to experience the results of that culture change resulting from the 1958 change in education and I don't think we are going to like it. Our understanding of freedom and duty is nothing as it once was! We have fragments of that past in old books that we can not find in the books written by a technologically correct society. My grandmother's generation is long dead and loosing them is a terrible loss to us! Her father sold the family's beautiful home on the lake, and his business and he became a laborer and he paid off all the investors in the business he had until his business partner embezzled the companies money. In their day, honor was more important than money. This was clearly obvious in my grandmother's character and I have seen it in others that were of her generation. Being with these people was completely different than what we experience today. Today's understanding of freedom has nothing to do with honor and that is a terrible thing!

Let us call this parameter two.

Therefore, applying the above two parameters, I postulate the following:

Mark realizes that, due to pollution, over harvesting, habitat destruction, over population, and the lack of meaningful change to rectify these problems, the earth will no longer be able to sustain life, human or otherwise, within the next three hundred years. Mark, being an exceedingly talented geneticist, has the ability to create a virus which will eliminate 75% of the human population over the next hundred years. There is no suffering to speak of, simply a massive reduction in the ability to reproduce and the resulting population decline. This action will result in the betterment of future generations as well as restoring global balance and harmony.

Duty suggests that Mark release his virus, despite his personal feelings on the issue. He is aware of both outcomes, elimination of everyone (no action on his part) or elimination of 75% of humanity (action on his part). Good will (ensuring that life goes on) informs Mark's Duty to Act, which is supported by reason (Continuation of life over the cessation of life), and therefore, the act that Ought to be done.

And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant. — Book273

Duty and honor go hand in hand. You are smart but what you wrote lacks wisdom. Your story associates doing the smart thing with killing which most certainly would not be considered honorable and this kind of thinking is exactly what is wrong in the US today. :rage: Education for a technological society with unknown values has destroyed the democracy we once had when we had education for good moral judgment.

I quibble on the word "epistemology." If you mean methods by which we know, I agree, — tim wood

Method is basically what I am talking about, though I would say that we do gain something. "Knowledge" is a loaded word in ethics, but we do gain insight (even, of ourselves), a larger perspective, and, say, an understanding of the criteria of our concepts and the context we find ourselves in, etc.

I suggest we are always lost and never not lost, anything else is mere illusion propped up by a seeming regularity: we think we know, and for a while win some of our bets, but our knowledge is spurious. — tim wood

Although we might not always know the criteria for something (what is indicative of "walking" is one example Wittgenstein gives"), it might be a little cynical to say we are "always lost". This is only to say though that not everything is a moral moment, the same as to say not every motion is an action, or every action is "intended". We normally go along saying things and doing things, and only when something is fishy (Austin/Cavell say) do we ask "What did you mean?" or "Did you intend to do that?" The things we do and say being, not illusion, but merely not usually conceptually investigated (looking at their criteria and use). And I would claim knowledge is not so much false, as limited--it comes to an end, say, with respect to the separate Other (which I take up in my examination of Wittgenstein's lion quote).

Our duty then to be informed and self-informed as best we can be, reason being our best and only true navigational aid. And it seems to me Kant finds morality in reason, at least as much as with reason. — tim wood

I agree that what I am suggesting is both an examination of the world, and learning about ourself. And also agree that Kant is trying to find morality in and with reason, but my argument here is that his is still an effort to solve the moral problem beforehand. It is also to deny the human contribution (thrown out with the desire to remove emotion, inclination, etc. (the "subjective") from moral decision-making); seeing the partial role of rational rules and criteria is to acknowledge the human standing up for what matters to them (or not), subject to the consequences to their identity, character, answerability, etc.--completing the circle Emerson would say.

And this is precisely what the mariner does, not just in storm but always. He reads his moment, the vibration of the wind in his lines, the colour of the sky, and what experience tells him. His decision then at that moment being always and forever correct, notwithstanding what comes over the horizon at him. — tim wood

You may enjoy Stanley Cavell's essay in "The Quest for the Ordinary", in which he uses The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to investigate the loss caused by the line Kant draws between us and the thing-in-itself.

Whoops, responded to a response that was not to my post.

Unless you knew people of my grandmother's generation, I don't really care what you think. It is like talking about being an overwhelmed nurse in a hospital that is overwhelmed without having the experience. I have no idea why some people appear to worship Nietzsche. Nietzsche and Hegel got Germany into big trouble. Not directly but as others adopted their ideas and Prussia organized the whole of Germany into an industrial/military complex, we saw the horrors man can create when they love power and not wisdom.

This is not quick judgment but a very passionate judgment. The US and its allies defeated Germany in two world wars and then the US adopted the German (Prussian) models of bureaucracy and education and replaced classic education presenting Greek and Roman philosophers with education for technology and German philosophers, Now the US is what it defended it is democracy against. It no longer understands rule by reason but has reactionary politics as Germany did and I think we are in for a walk through Hades.

Exactly want is my part in the US being a Military Industrial Complex with reactionary politics and a culture that has lost sight of morality? :chin:

["[Antony's argument] that we can bypass ['the distinction between the rational and emotional, or (Hume's) moral sense/innate moral judgment'] and still have a personal moral decision bound to reasonable action"] would be highly dependent on our culture, associations, and the books we read. Social animals have what some call a pre-morality. They are wired for group behavior.... we are not born with [cultural/thinking] language, nor are we born knowing the concepts essential to moral thinking and we aren't born knowing the high order thinking skills. Any "personal moral decision bound to reasonable action" is dependant on what we learn and because our circumstances are different, our sense of morality can be different.

This is where the higher-order thinking skills come in. That is the learned ability to reason through our choices and make decisions. ...Morality based on how we feel instead of how we think, leads to power struggles not a high standard of morality. — Athena

I agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.

I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.).

Unless you knew people of my grandmother's generation, I don't really care what you think. — Athena

Well, I deeply apologize; I got an email that I thought was you replying to my post, but it was, instead, you replying to someone else's (a little new to this). I thought it was strange, but I made some poor assumptions, and I'm sorry that I offended you. If it helps, my mother lived through the war in England, and my grandmother the century before last.

I have no idea why some people appear to worship Nietzsche. — Athena

As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit).

This is not quick judgment... — Athena

Again, my sincere apologies. As a token of peace, I offer that you might (if you can forgive him for basically being a Nazi) find Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology” interesting. He has a very dark view of the influence of technology, roughly, "enframing" (narrowing) our view of humanity and nature as only a means (echoing Marx).

it might be a little cynical to say we are "always lost" — Antony Nickles

This may be tangential, but I'll defend. If I am away from my home beyond my willingness or desire to be away, possibly beyond or against my control, I may well feel anxiety. After all, home is where my roots are and where I am grounded - the places and things by which I know my place, and lacking, do not know.

But nomads, and notably Eskimos until even recently, have lived and had to live without any such landedness, except the land and sky itself in largest sense. Where an Eskimo is, is home, and it is always with him, because he is always his home and he is never away from it. Thus our way of being, quantitative and in quantity the Eskimo until recently did not have, and the Eskimo's being of quality, which most of us do not have. The difference being that while I may know I am not home, also I never know how truly I am lost, even when I know where my home is, because at the least home is an idea that I confuse with place. And the Eskimo is never lost, because at least his always with him. And we know from accounts that even when an Eskimo would prefer to be somewhere other than he is, he simply moves there as best he can, and does not worry about it more than he should.

My home, then, has substance, or so it seems. His what I call bootstrapped, in that it is a something without a substance, as an idea shaped indeed by ideas, but, I should think, his the more real for being unreal. I think of morality of just this kind of bootstrapping, a kind of hermeneutic spiral around reason tht is the more real for not being real at all.

Only one task left: how is wanting being free? — tim wood

To do as we want is freedom.

Your distinction between freedom and the freedom we possess is interesting, but when I open the present of your thought, the box is empty. It is a word game without substance because if we do not understand cause and effect and "the limits of our freedom[/u], things can go very wrong, so I don't think separating cause and effect thinking from our understanding of freedom is a good idea. Yes, I do say "the facts as they stand matter". :kiss: — Athena

But you don't get it. The fact that you consider our existing condition as just one in which we have to deal with, as you said, "the limits of our freedom" indicates that you subscribe to the definition of freedom I provided, freedom as "the power to act, speak, and think as one wants". Then you go on to criticize the very definition that you believe is true - nothing wrong in that if you're suicidal of course. The present of my thought may have been empty but yours is incoherent. I guess something's better than nothing :smile:

But what is wrong with it? Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly. — tim wood

I went back to the beginning of the OP to see where this started. I’m assuming the example you gave is about freedom without duty, or what some just call freedom, When you say the motorcyclist hurts “ everyone, and some greatly” how do you mean that?

Every motorcyclist of any experience accepts as given that sooner or later he is going down, will be in an accident. Informed by that insight and driving with heightened awareness he attempts to make sure that does not happen that day, and in any case tries to do what he can to minimize risk and to minimize damage. Leather jackets, boots, gloves, even a helmet may look cool, but they are not for show. And it is not unusual, though crazy, to see a pretty girl on the back in short sleeves, bare-legged in shorts, sandals or flip-flops, no gloves, and a second-hand joke for a helmet. He is usually dressed more appropriately, but if they go down, she is lucky if not scarred or damaged for life.

The idea is that the risks of motorcycle riding are altogether different from being in a car, including problems of control that simply do not occur in a car, having to do with the power of the machine and such arcanae as steering geometry, weight transfer, and how to brake.

But what's the harm? A little road rash? If it's the unprotected skull, good chance it breaks. That means that the lark of riding without a helmet and even just falling over can devastate a life. Devastate a family. And if unlucky enough to survive, subject his family to the wear of possibly years of rehabilitation and anywhere from $500k to $5M+ in medical costs.

It seems pretty clear that it's a folly of ignorance to proclaim against risk because all life is risk. What matters (to me) is the degree and proportion of the risk. There are right times, places, circumstances to take on added risk. And it's the folly of stupidity to take them on at the wrong time, place, or under the wrong circumstances. And this kind of stupidity is itself pandemic. For example, when was the last time you noticed you were being tailgated by someone texting while driving?

Of course in the greater scheme of things these examples are relatively trivial, but what does it say of the judgment of a man so in thrall to what he wants that he lacks even the freedom to allow himself to see what his circumstance really is and exercise appropriate judgment? And ironically, the helmetless especially insist they're exercising their right under freedom, to be unfree.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.

Is there any possible action that would not fall under this example of freedom and duty?

I think these matters are usually not if but whether. By that I mean that proportion must play a part. For example, driving some ten miles away from a Home Depot, I realized that I had been undercharged by about seven dollars. Am I obliged as a matter of duty to return to the store and give them the seven dollars? The law is that the store's error does not make it mine, whatever it is. If they had not charged me, say, $2000 for a refrigerator, that refrigerator is not mine, and I have to return, and I should. For the seven dollars I argued this way: the error was clearly the mistake of a cashier not properly trained; the store had decided not to invest in training. And the cost of returning, time, effort, expense, made the net return immaterial, because I would have been entitled to compensation. Verdict: I kept the $7 and enjoyed a completely clear conscience about it.

Thus proportion and materiality. And for a whole lot of decisions there is simply no issue of morality involved. The world, then, is not just a gigantic sheet of Kantian flypaper to which we're all stuck.

I promise to make my answers shorter if you keep asking.

What I was getting at is are there circumstances someone might harm themselves without hurting others? Like someone without any family commits suicidal?

I think there is a flaw in the argument that only the harm to others matters. It is a bare assertion. If I harm myself or if another harms me, I am harmed in either case. What distinguishes them so that one is immoral and the other is permissible?

Note we aren't talking about formulating laws for regulating our society but speaking about ethical principles.

8) In order to act morally, one must be free to act.
9) Duty is the obligation to act in accordance with morality.
10) Realization of purpose under morality is the highest aim of mankind.
11) It follows, then, that moral actions are the only actions of moral worth, that they fall under duty, and that to act in accordance with them requires freedom, and that to the extent that freedom is diminished, the individual is not free. — tim wood

Yes, absolutely.

But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact. — tim wood

The problem is, I think, that you’re using two meanings of freedom. Is, in your opinion, the freedom to do what you want related to Kant’s idea? It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP.

Kant says you owe the same duty to yourself, your person.

It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP. — Brett

Yes, that's it.

agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.

I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.). — Antony Nickles

I agree that "higher-order thinking skills" embetters us and our society, not only with knowledge of the criteria of our morals, but also our understanding of our obligation to ourselves (and others) to the ethical consideration of a moral moment. I would only say that the idea of "dependent" and "different" does not affect the human condition between (any) morals and when they leave us turned upon ourselves without further guidance. Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty.

I would only else say that we are not born with moral/cultural/language, we are born into them. They are there before us and apart from us. We do not (always) "learn" these (as rules, laws), as much as we pick them up in going along and becoming a part of society (an unconscious social contract by osmosis as it were); they are wrapped up in what our society cares about and the way things count in the world (this is Wittgenstein's Grammar and Criteria)--they are not "knowledge" and we don't "agree" on them. But, yes, we can renounce them, be ignorant of them, contradict them, but also, become conscious of them, reform them, extend them (into new contexts), etc. We do not need nor have a "higher standard". It is not a dichotomy between feeling and knowledge--we/the world already have ordinary criteria for morals, etc. The criteria may be forgotten, or unexamined, but that does not mean we don't live by them (are left to our "feelings") or can't explain them if asked (by Socrates, Austin, etc.). — Antony Nickles

That is some heavy thinking. A couple of points hit a nerve. Mostly at this moment, I can not stop thinking of all those good people who stormed the capital of the US. I must be careful how I speak of this because I could be so easily misunderstood. I want you to know your post resulted in me leaving the forum to write a letter to the editor and I thank you for the thoughts that lead to that.

The people who stormed the Capital were fighting for our freedom, and I think we should consider what this action has to do with being proud Americans and proud of how our nation began with a rebellion. In the South, some people still wave the rebel flag, and we need to consider what that means to them and how it ties into being a patriotic citizen. I want to point out that the concept of freedom and duty in the South has meant these people strongly support the defense of the US when we go to war. Dumping our rage on them now without understanding their sense of cause is our wrong. Not that they were right, but let us be realistic. We have manifested a military-industrial complex that is disenfranchising people and rapidly changing our social order, and this just leads to the craziness we have been experiencing. This is not all bad but our lack of awareness is terrible!

"Our "culture" and our "circumstances" and even our "morals" can be different, but the responsibility (among other things) that we have is universal, as you say, "to reason through our choices and make decisions", though I wouldn't call this a "learned ability" so much as a human obligation (categorically, as it were), say, our moral duty."

That is true but, we have been disenfranchised. It is as Eisenhower warned us to let happen because the 1958 change in education made this so. Since 1958 the young for been prepared for "group think" and reliance on experts. We have extended the military order from our federal bureaucracy to every institution, and disempowered citizens. Because the citizens have absolutely no knowledge of the change in bureaucratic order and what this has to do the change in education, and the social, economic and political ramifications of this, they are not conscious of what has gone so terribly wrong but they are aware of the powerlessness. This turns us against each other.

People don't read long post so I will stop here. At this moment in history, talking about being born into a moral/cultural/language, seems to miss the reality of the US today. Our morality, culture, language, is in complete turmoil right now and we are killing each other trying to save our democracy. I am hating myself for not being a better writer and not completing the book I started long ago. We are unaware of why things have gone crazy and I hate myself for my failure to do raise awareness.

Well, I deeply apologize; I got an email that I thought was you replying to my post, but it was, instead, you replying to someone else's (a little new to this). I thought it was strange, but I made some poor assumptions, and I'm sorry that I offended you. If it helps, my mother lived through the war in England, and my grandmother the century before last. — Antony Nickles

No apology is necessary. I think we should recognize we are coming from different cultures and that this may lead to misunderstanding. We have lost sight of the fact that can be more than one truth because there most certainly are different situations, and what is true in your situation may not be true in mine. My very old logic book makes this clear, but that is no longer the logic we are working with, therefore, we have intense conflicts and even violence. Education for technology has to led us thinking something is either true or it is false, and now we are tearing each other apart and tending towards violence instead of reason.

"As I don't take this as a real desire to learn, I would only say that people who take Nietzsche as proposing "ideas" or social opinions, miss the point (which is to say everyone who has only read snippets of him, or think the "will to power" is a moral theory.) His mission was to show the historical and contextual quality missing from Kantian and deontological morals, along with the additional point I am making about our human condition (I think it important to say, though, that he did not believe we are always living beyond morals; only that they have a life and a limit)."

I am sure you did not mean to insult me, by saying I do not have a sincere desire to learn. I will point out, as my very old logic book did, that there are too many things for us to learn for anyone to know all of them. No human being can learn everything. Nietzsche does not come to the top of my list something I must study, however, that does not mean I have no desire to learn. How the masses understood being supermen has come down through history as a nightmare that is regrettable. Nietzsche's influence on society and the impact of rapidly advancing technology has backed humanity into a corner, and I think Greek and Roman philosophy might better prepare us to make the transition to the New Age, better than Nietzsche and Hegel. Not that what they said has no value, but it did not lead to the democracy of the US. It has however influenced the US ever since Eisenhower put the military-industrial complex in place. It is far better for humanity for us to strive to be the best humans we can be, instead of us being driven to be supermen. I will add, women being liberated to be as men is not as good as them being empowered as women. As civilians and police clash, we need the feminine force.

Again, my sincere apologies. As a token of peace, I offer that you might (if you can forgive him for basically being a Nazi) find Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology” interesting. He has a very dark view of the influence of technology, roughly, "enframing" (narrowing) our view of humanity and nature as only a means (echoing Marx).

Now that appears to be along my line of interest. It is insane that we fight for our liberty and give it up for technology! Not just technology like our computers and the web, but bureaucratic technology as well. The changed bureaucratic technology has shifted power to government and disenfranchised us. To use the Christian term, this is the beast on steroids!

Unfortunately, Christians tend to study their Bibles instead of reality. If they paid as much attention to reality we might all be working together much better than we are. Right now the US divide between science and religion is ripping the nation apart and we must get back to understanding why our Statue of Liberty holds a book and what science has to do with morals and liberty.

But the purpose here is to draw attention to people who claim as a matter of right under freedom to do what they want; and to the harm they do, potentially to be sure, but too often as a matter of fact.
— tim wood
The problem is, I think, that you’re using two meanings of freedom. Is, in your opinion, the freedom to do what you want related to Kant’s idea? It seems to me this second freedom is so meaningless that there’s no way to use it in the context of your OP. — Brett

I love the debate the two of you are having.

If we want government services we must give up a degree of freedom. If we are going to rent instead of own our homes, we give up some freedom. If we want to use computers and the internet, we must give up a degree of freedom. Even if we want medical care we must give up a degree of freedom because we can be denied medical care and just about anything else if we are not cooperative.

Antony Nickles

suggested reading Heidegger's essay “The Question Concerning Technology”.

He tried to make amends with me by saying he was influenced by his mother and grandmother who experienced the war years. I wonder if he noticed their expectation of everyone accepting their authority instead of waiting to know the policy and what they must do to comply with it?

Actually my story has no one killing anyone, simply reducing the ability to procreate. No suffering for anyone existing. Indeed even the knowledge of the reduction would not be a factor as the change would take place over a number of generations.

My story was not to disparage the teaching of Kant, but to point out that the perspective and values of the individual determine the interpretation and application of Kant's framework.

My thought experiment is to point out that the interpretation of a framework is based on the individual doing the interpretation: values, perspectives, experiences. All of which will be used to determine the appropriate course of action (appropriate as the Actor determines, not as the Audience determines). This effectively defines the underlying difficulty in determining both freedom and duty (among a great many other things) as each of these are values based on primarily personal values. The framework provided by Kant is helpful as a guide, however the application is dependent on the actor's interpretation of it.

It seems you're a relativist, through and through (or maybe not). Question: according to you is anything just plain wrong? Can anything be just plain wrong?

Actually my story has no one killing anyone, simply reducing the ability to procreate. No suffering for anyone existing. Indeed even the knowledge of the reduction would not be a factor as the change would take place over a number of generations.

My story was not to disparage the teaching of Kant, but to point out that the perspective and values of the individual determine the interpretation and application of Kant's framework. — Book273

Hum, presently international organizations are attempting to reduce procreation by giving women jobs. When women have jobs other than caring for family, and children are most likely going to become adults, people have fewer children. So in your story, how is procreation reduced?

Maybe read the story again. viral reduction of the ability to procreate.

Rape. Just plain wrong.