I was very pleased with how the Kant discussion went yesterday. In fact, this is the happiest I’ve been after a Kant class. Usually I’m in despair over my failure to generate discussion over and insight into Kant.
Kant, as I’ve said many times now, is both very difficult but very crucial. And while it’s hard to pack him into a mere ninety minutes (and so we’ll spend some more time on him on Monday), I’m convinced that what is most essential should be made readily accessible to all students and that nothing is gained (in an introductory course) by doing too much Kant or dragging out the discussion. And, of course, we’ll refer back to him repeatedly. But my hope is to have introduced you to his main insights so that we can mull them over as the course develops.
Of the many things that we didn’t get to touch on and will hopefully touch on Monday, two stand out. The first is the legacy of Kant. As we saw in class, there are many reasons that most people believe that Kant’s theory is insufficient for a viable, stand-alone theory of the moral life. However, most people do believe that Kant is indispensable in understanding the moral life. The reason is this: While moral life is too complex and emotions too important to discount them as Kant does (or at least seems to), there is a need for making clear rules and establishing clear limits in a society. While Kant is not good for dealing with the complexity of moral life, he is good for dealing with those clear boundaries.
Think of Mill here. He claims that the principal ingredient for happiness is letting your own character – and not “the traditions [and] customs of other people” – be “the rule of [your] conduct.” However, my own character cannot be absolute here, as I cannot interfere with the liberty of others. Mill does not believe that this is a problem, and he claims that the restraints imposed by society in order to ensure that I don’t interfere with others will actually help me to develop my own character better. Yet Mill is hard-pressed to then give a clear account of what those restrains (rules and limits) are and how I can justify them. It is precisely here that Kant comes in handy.
The second thing that stood out for me was the resonance of Kant’s description of the relation between popular and philosophical moral theory (at 409-410) and the allegory of the Cave. The description of popular moral theories sounds like what must dominate in the Cave (especially the bit about being caught up in “the chitchat of everyday life”), whereas the difficulty of getting the populace to accept a well-grounded, philosophical moral theory sounds like the struggle faced by the person who has seen the Good and then reentered to the cave in order to share the vision with others so as to free them.
BUT WHEN WILL WE LEARN HOW TO FREE THE OTHERS?! That is a big part of what I would like to learn from this class. :)
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, that's the first time anyone has asked that question. I think that it either never occurs to people that they might free someone else or else they have no doubt that they'll soon be freeing others - perhaps this weekend. In Plato's Republic, Socrates claims that you need to spend 15 years contemplating the good. But since then, it hasn't really been an issue in philosophy. The focus is always on freeing yourself, but not on preparing yourself to free others. (There is one exception within recent philosophy: Wittgenstein. Freud and Marx are also concerned with this, but they were not originally philosophers, although it's mostly philosophers who read them now.)
ReplyDeleteSo: I don't know. I need to give this more thought. A very good question.