Reviews for Critique, norm, and utopia

The average rating for Critique, norm, and utopia based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-08-18 00:00:00 Clinton Stewart Hume, by his criticism of the concept of causality, awakened him from his dogmatic slumber—so at least he says, but the awakening was only temporary, and he soon invented a soporific that enabled him to sleep again. —Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy When I first read that opening salvo of Russell’s chapter on Kant, I thought it rather unfair towards the German monk. But now, after digesting Kant’s philosophy a little more, I can’t help but agree. In fact, I more than agree—I think it sums up Kant’s whole project to the letter. Kant proceeds like this. Instead of starting off with questions like “what is morality?” or “is knowledge possible?” he assumes that he already knows what morality dictates and that knowledge is possible. Then, after this initial assumption, he tries to figure out what conditions must be present in order to justify the assumption. For example, when Hume questions the validity of causality, Kant says "well, obviously causality is real; and because it is real then there must be noumena as distinct from phenomena, so causality is an a priori assumption we make about phenomena, which makes perception possible, etc." In short, he makes more assumptions to justify his initial assumption; the end result is a neat system that rests on a bed of shaky suppositions. Again, take Kant’s position on free will. Instead of inquiring whether we actually have free will, he says that, because we have morality, we must have free will; and therefore there must be a God and a heaven, etc. The fundamental question—can we chose our actions?—is swept under the rug by pointing to morality—which itself depends on the question of free will. And whenever he is in a bind, he invokes his famous noumena, which allow him to say "yes, perhaps we obey laws as observed phenomena; but as things-in-ourselves we have free will." This isn’t satisfying at all. For, even in his system, causality is not a property of things-in-themselves, but a pre-condition of our perception of things-as-perceived. And because the concept of free will depends on the concept of causality, importing free will into the noumenal world makes no sense. Plus, since we can’t, by definition, know anything about ourselves as noumena, how on earth could we be obeying a moral code in the noumenal world? On the other hand, if we obey moral codes in the phenomenal world, what if it is determined through experiment that humans are subject to immutable laws and, in fact, don't have free will? You see? In either case there’s a problem. Also consider his idea of the moral code itself. Kant insists that morality springs from reason alone. Therefore, according to Kant, whether a law is moral or not depends on the form of the law rather than the content. So long as the law can be plausibly willed as universal—regardless of the content of the law—it is moral; if it cannot, it is immoral. But the question of whether I would will a law to be universal already takes into account my own empirical desires—so it can’t be logic alone that is at play here. For example, I see no contradiction in willing to commit suicide; because, for this to moral (according to Kant), I would only have to will that every person on the planet committed suicide—unlikely, perhaps, but not an impossible desire. Nor is there any logical barrier preventing me from willing that all humans fight to the death—provided that I myself be willing to fight to the death. In short, any action—whether or not it conduces to increasing the welfare and happiness of humankind—can be moral in Kant’s view, provided that it is willed as a universal law. That, I can't abide. I can go on, but it’s unnecessary. In short, Kant’s philosophy is an elaborate system that merely justifies all of the things he already believed: causality is valid; morality is a duty; the self is real; free will is actual; God and heaven are real; Christianity is superior to all other moral systems; and so on. Kant’s kind of philosophy requires intelligence—and Kant was an incredible genius, to be sure—but it requires little daring or imagination, as the conclusions are known right from the start. To make an additional assumption to justify something you already believed is the easiest thing in the world; to question your belief is one of the hardest. But, before I end this hostile review, let me temper some of these criticisms. For one, working through the philosophical system of a man as extraordinarily gifted as was Kant is valuable in itself. To merely understand him is a feat; the architecture of his mind is magnificent. Second, in dealing with these problems—however adequately or inadequately—Kant did come up with a whole set of terms that have proven to be of enormous value. And third, even if we do not accept his conclusions, we can at least give him credit for carrying on the philosophic torch after Hume’s penetrating mind almost extinguished its flame. [Note: After some more thinking, and a lengthy talk with a friend, I think that some of my above points are invalid, or at least based on a naive reading of Kant. (Though I still think some are arguable.) Regardless of my or Kant's rightness or wrongness, I think it's a useful exercise to subject philosophical arguments to strenuous criticism, if only to better understand them. And boy is Kant pain to understand. For a better-informed and more thorough investigation of Kant's morals, see my review of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.]

Review # 2 was written on 2014-04-08 00:00:00 Cwengile Gagela Immanuel Kant is what I suppose one would call a 'practical philosopher' in that he is not primarily concerned with the more abstract thoughts of philosophy. Rather his philosophy, as expressed in this book, is one about how practical philosophy, or practical reason, works. He makes a distinction at the beginning of his book between the subjective and the objective, suggesting that practical reason is about making the subjective objective. This book begins with a section about defining practical reason and its applications. In other words, this is a work which does discuss the abstract concepts of philosophy, such as good and evil or morality. But it is not a work which broadly or ambiguously leaves questions to the reader as much as it is a work which seeks to define those questions in more concrete manners. One particular thought that Kant reaches is that morality and the existence of morality is theoretical proof for the existence of God (or at least of some higher power). I cannot explain his reasoning, though it read as sound and logical, however I do recommend that, if that vein of argument interests you, you read Kant's work here. It is an interesting way of looking at morality and something I've often questioned - without God or some kind of higher power does morality become more or less meaningless? Others may challenge that it becomes up to us then, as individuals, to be moral for the sake of being moral but that's never made a lot of sense to me. What is the purpose of morality? Either way this is another strong philosophical text and one worth reading in order to understand more modern Western Philosophy. If philosophy interests you I would go looking for this book.