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The Principle of Autonomy One of my favorite aspects of Kant’s moral philosophy is the principle of autonomy; however, as with any prima facia appealing idea there are usually problems lurking below the shiny surface. I think I wrote about the principle of autonomy (PA) in an earlier post but for my own good […]
Read More Do You Trust People Who Watch Jersey Shore? Kant and the Principle of AutonomyPreamble I loves me my preambles… First a few autobiographical notes: today I wrote my first midterm in 11 years. I don’t recall being so stressed about exams in undergrad but for some reason I was really worried about this one; maybe it’s just a novelty effect and after a few more exams my […]
Read More I Like Money, Wanna Hang Out? Kantian Ethics: Acting From Reason vs For ReasonsIs Morality Self-Evident? Preamble Up until now we have just taken it on faith that Kant is right in that the supreme principle of morality is the Categorical Imperative (CI) in its various incarnations (i.e., formulation of universalization, of natural law, and of humanity as an end). Now Kant begins his argument for why […]
Read More What Can We Know About Morality from the Concept of Freedom?Intro “I don’t do that because I have morals“. Whenever I hear that I want to reply, “Yeah? So do I; and my morality tells me that it is good to strangle people who say stupid things”. My evidence is purely anecdotal but it seems every time I here this it’s from a […]
Read More The Moral Law, God, and Helping Little Old Ladies Across the StreetHi everyone, once again thank you for visiting my humble blog. Knowing that a handful of people read this is very helpful in inspiring me to write. Before I continue and discuss Kant I’d like to share with you an experience I had. Obviously, I have a natural affinity to philosophy generally but sometimes I […]
Read More Kant Vs LibertariansPreamble Lets do a quick and dirty summary of where we are so far in Kant’s argument regarding obligations to act morally when we know what the correct moral action is. When we left off Kant had made the case that some things are ends in themselves; in ordinary language we say that some […]
Read More Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 2)Intro Ramble: The Purpose of Philosophy in Morality It’s funny how things work sometimes. After making my last post–“What Philosophy Is and Isn’t”–I encountered the following passage in Kant regarding the role of philosophy (in ethics, anyway): It is here that she [i.e., philosophy] has to show her purity as the authoress of […]
Read More Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 1)p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } This is a short reflection I wrote for my Kant Seminar: p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Kant argues that making false promises and committing suicide are both contrary to the Categorical Imperative because they are non-universalizable. To demonstrate both acts are immoral he employs to both acts an […]
Read More Is it Always Immoral to Commit Suicide?Kant on Lying Preamble Recall that in Kant’s moral philosophy acting morally is a matter of acting out of duty to the moral law. Let’s break that down. First, the moral law (AKA the Categorical Imperative) as I’m sure you all recall is “I ought never to act except in such a way that […]
Read More Is It Ever OK To Lie?Chapter 2 How Can We Discover A Moral Law? One of the overarching goals of Kant’s Metaphysic of Morals is that there is a moral law that all rational beings ought to follow–even when they are tempted to do otherwise. The problem is, how do we discover such a law, if one even exists? […]
Read More If You Were Purely Rational, How Would You Behave?
Wrestling with Philosophy 