Just a revision essay for me, thought a few people might find it interesting/useful.
Is a good will the only thing good in itself?
Kant’s Grundlegung is for the most part a series of logical deductions derived from a set of starting assumptions – assumptions which for Kant might plausibly be considered as axioms. Thus in order to assess the positive propositions of the Grundlegung it is necessary to examine those assumptions, foremost amongst which is the proposition that the only thing good in itself is a good will.
What does Kant mean by saying that a good will is the only thing good in itself? It is nothing more than a formulation of the fundamental Kantian assumption about ethical action: that for an action to be truly ethical – one might say, ethically ‘pure’ – it must be done because it is required by reason, and in no way because of sentiment, passion, or as Kant puts it, ‘inclination’. Indeed, this one assumption is what does the work in Kant’s ethical thinking, and other assumptions can be seen as alternative or particular manifestations of it. If one accepts this key Kantian assumption about reason, embedded in the first page of Chapter 1, as well as in the preface, the rest of the Grundlegung flows as a matter of course.
So should we accept this Kantian assumption? I will try and show that Kant provides no good reason that we should, and that one is entitled to reject Kant’s austere take on the role of reason. Consequently, one is entitled to reject much of the Grundlegung as a whole.
Let us first consider Kant’s initial argument. Kant begins Chapter 1 by establishing his claim that a good will is that which wills at what is demanded by reason. A good will is not qualified by any external trappings, it “is not good because of its effects or accomplishments, and not because of its adequacy to achieve any proposed end”. Rather, it is to will what is dictated by reason, regardless of utility. Of course, Kant merely asserts this in §7 of Chapter 1, no argument is provided. This is no surprise, however, as Kant is simply stating his starting assumptions (or as I suggest we think of them, axioms). Argument is introduced in §8 when Kant sees he must justify the peculiar implications of his starting assumption. Kant points out that a being properly equipped for life is given by nature the best faculties for fulfilling its needs. Kant goes on to note that “if nature’s real purpose for a being possessed of reason and a will were its preservation, its welfare, or in a word its happiness, then nature would have hit on a very bad arrangement if it assigned the creature’s reason the job of carrying out this purpose”. Instinct would do a far better job. Further, why would nature allow us to have reason if its purpose was only to meddle in the tasks of instinct? No, “Nature would have taken over not only the choice of ends but also that of means, and would with wise foresight have entrusted both to instinct alone”. Yet nature would not produce something for no purpose, and as reason is evidently a practical faculty, it follows that its purpose is “to produce a will which is good in itself, not just good as a means to some further end [e.g. personal wealth, the happiness of anther, etc]”. Put another way, the fact that we even have reason at all is proof that fully (or ‘pure’) ethical action must go beyond the realm of the merely practical and contingent.
Should we accept this argument? Firstly it is worth noting that Kant is expressly answering a challenge set by Hume: for Hume pointed out that one of the prime reasons for relegating the importance of reason in explaining human behaviour (in all spheres) was it’s sheer impotence and inefficacy in so many cases. Thus Kant is attempting to take precisely Hume’s point, and turn it against a Humean line of thinking. Regardless, Kant’s argument seems open to a major objection corresponding to two major features of the argument. Firstly, the argument is implicitly teleological. For Kant, reason has an end: it does not simply exist as something human beings happen to have for no particular purpose (or purposes), but quite the contrary it has an express purpose, and that purpose is something which can be itself discovered by (a priori) human reasoning. Secondly, and connectedly, reason has a function: again, it doesn’t just exist doing nothing, it exists so as to carry out some function; and what is more there is a correct function for reason to carry out.
Yet it seems unclear why a modern reader should accept either the teleology or the functional aspect of Kant’s thought. For example, why must man and his faculties aim at some end? Post-Darwinians like ourselves might be reluctant to say that man’s faculties must all be ordained to achieve some end, through fulfilment of a particular function. For example, we might wish to say that in evolutionary terms those creatures able to reason were able to develop language, and hence were far more likely to survive (through communicating with the group for mutual protection) and reproduce. As a result, the faculty of reason developed. However, that faculty may have just happened to develop beyond the strict needs of evolution, allowing for the possibility of abstract conceptual thought. As this was not detrimental to survival and reproduction capacities (it may even have been beneficial), it was never eliminated. Yet it does not follow that abstract and conceptual reasoning has any form of purpose, end or function. Of course, Kant could reply – and this was certainly implicit in his thinking – that man has at least an end (if not necessarily a function) because he was created by God. But accepting that argument means accepting another assumption that we may see no good reason to countenance. Thus the argument from the features of reason provides no convincing explanation as to why we should accept that a good will is the only thing good in itself. It does, however, bring out three features latent in Kant’s thought: his Pietist upbringing, a certain affinity with Aristotle, and his (forgivable) pre-Darwinian limitations.
As far as I can tell, Kant only mounts one other attempt to justify his starting assumption that truly ethical action is devoid of inclination, obeying only the commands of reason: the discussion of the Three Shopkeepers in §10. Even here, however, we see that the justification requires reference back to the Kantian assumption.
The thought experiment goes as follows: we have three shopkeepers, each of whom charges their customers fairly. One does this because he calculates that he turns the greatest long-term profit this way. Another does it because he enjoys treating his customers fairly. The last does it because he recognises a moral duty, prescribed by reason, to not cheat customers, even though he has no inclination to help his customers, and indeed might actually desire to cheat them. It is clear that anyone can agree with Kant that the first shopkeeper does not act morally. The important distinction comes between the second and third. One can certainly see the motivations behind Kant’s thinking. If the second shopkeeper has a turn of heart, he may start cheating his customers: there is no guarantee that he will continue to behave morally. Furthermore, it may seem as though his moral behaviour is in some way ‘infected’ by self-referential motivations, making it seem that the act is done merely for self love, in which case it cant really be moral, because it is on a par with the behaviour of the first shopkeeper. But to accept these thoughts is already to concede too much to Kant. For one should press against him the following question: “why consider an action done out of inclination be considered as infected? Why not think of ethical conduct as based upon feelings of mutual sympathy, and indeed see it as a positive benefit that people enjoy treating each other fairly and kindly?”. Kant’s reply will no doubt have to be: “because the only true ethical action is one done not out of inclination but out of rational respect for the moral law”. Yet of course that isn’t an answer, it is simply a repetition of an assumption that one is perfectly entitled to challenge.
Thus the Three Shopkeepers are really only a manifestation of Kant’s starting assumption, and in no way justify it. In turn, we are still none the wiser as to why a good will should be the only thing good in itself, because we still might find ourselves questioning – as any Humean in ethics is sure to do – the assumption that action done out of inclination cannot ipso facto be moral.
Or course, one may wish to agree with Kant on this matter – I have offered no reasons as to why his assumption is necessarily wrong. Rather, I have tried to show that there exist no good arguments – at least, not provided by Kant – for thinking that it is right, either. Indeed, whether one opts to subscribe to Kant’s position may not even be something that can be settled by argument: it may come down to simple temperament, in which case the earlier language of ‘axioms’ seems increasingly apt. The point here is that if one finds Kant’s fundamental assumption implausible, or somehow misguided, one will conclude that there is no good reason to believe that a good will is the only thing good in itself. And rather dramatically, if one finds that this is the conclusion they reach, by the same logical eloquence that Kant used to derive the rest of the Grundlegung, one will be led to reject much of the 39 sections comprising 63 pages that follow the example of the Shopkeepers.
I Am Legend: A Post-Iraq Possibility Friday, Dec 28 2007
Current Affairs and Middle East and North America and Sagar's Social Commentaries Paul Sagar 1:45 pm
The other day when staying in France I went with my cousins to see I Am Legend (although in France they call it Je Suis Une Legende, so they lost something in the translation there). I was pleasantly surprised. A film in which Will Smith is the last man in New York, and he has to save the world…well it sounds nauseating. However it’s surprisingly gripping, and his acting is at times very convincing and shows an emotional depth I never thought he had. After I’d seen it though I couldn’t help but put my analysis hat on, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a film which could only have been made post-Iraq, and represents a significant shift in American attitudes, or at least tries to encourage said shift. Below is my analysis, although I warn anyone who hasn’t seen it that this contains major plot spoilers.
Firstly, the zombie-killers that have taken over the world are enormously allegorical on a number of levels. In the film they were the result of an attempt by American science to make the world a better place, but something went wrong and in America’s cock-sureness it created a monster (or several billion of them). This is straightforwardly allegorical for a number of things: the American invasion of Iraq with the aim of ending dictatorship and spreading liberal democracy resulting only in chaos and bloodshed; the fact that much of the Muslim world has become embittered against the spread of American values and culture – which the American spread only with good will and intention – as well as with American foreign policy; the arming of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1980’s to stop the spread of communism resulting in a new and more deadly enemy emerging (in the film, the virus that turns people into zombies was originally developed as a cure for cancer). If one was pushing the boat out, one could say that the figure of a blood-thirsting zombie psychopath, who is both intelligent and resourceful in killing people, but cannot be reasoned with, is pretty much the American popular conception of Muslims in general.
Developing the last point, towards the end of the film Will Smith discovers a cure for the virus, but it’s too late. The zombies have broken into his compound and are going to kill him. Through the bullet-proof glass that is about to be shattered by the head zombie, he pleads with them to stop because he now knows how to cure them, having learned from the error of Man’s ways. But they do not – cannot – listen to him. These creatures that have been made by man might slowly be saved with great effort – but many of them will have to be killed. It’s not too hard to read into that particular scene, although if my reading is correct it is interesting to note that Americans are now starting to face up to the fact they may have had a hand in creating their latest and most deadly enemies.
The film also has messages about American values in the post-Iraq world, not just commentary about Muslims as zombies. For example, in the aforementioned scene when Smith has discovered the cure, he locks a young boy and a woman who have recently come into the film in a bomb-shelter thing. Then he blows himself up with a hand grenade to take out all the zombies in his house. There are a number of messages here.
Firstly, just before the zombies attack Smith repudiates any belief in God. He believes that God never existed, only man’s follies. By the end of the scene with the hand grenade, he has received a sort of subtly-pulled off revelation. The message is that God looks after good people, though they may have to put up with immense hardships in the intervening period. This is reminiscent of loads of stuff in the Bible of course, the Book of Job, the Israelites spending 40 years in the desert, the Flood that destroys all but righteous Noah and his family etc. Generally it’s just a message about God, that all Americans can continue to easily digest.
Secondly, it is worth noting that the woman who comes into the film is Puerto Rican. Here we have a Latin American woman who not only saves an American’s life at a crucial moment, but goes on to transport the anti-virus that will save the world. Again the message is clear: America has shat on its “back yard” since it became America, but now it realises that the War on Terror might go an awful lot better if the peoples of South America repudiate past injustices and abuses and rally behind the U.S.
Thirdly, Will Smith says repeatedly in the film that he cannot leave New York because that is where the zombie crisis began, and this is where he must stay to put things right. He simply cannot leave until the job is done, even if that means he must die in the process. It’s not hard to think of somewhere in the real world Americans have decided they wont leave until the job is done, no matter how many must die in the process.
Fourthly, and most importantly of all, there is one over-riding message about individual American attitudes. Whereas in the past, American films have often had a dominant feel-good factor, with the all-American hero saving the world and being reunited happily with his family in the final scenes – take as a prime example another Will Smith film (which happens this time to be total tosh), Independence Day - I Am Legend is different. To begin with, Smith’s wife and daughter are dead. The film springs this cleverly by making you think that they are alive and waiting for him, but we find out that they died the night New York descended into zombie-ridden anarchy. In the end, Smith sacrifices his own life to save that of others, indeed to save the world. There is no happy ending for him, and so the message is clear: modern American man may have to sacrifice everything to safeguard the future, and even before he does that he may have to accept that those he loves and cares for – those who are completely innocent – may have to suffer and die. The message in a post-9/11, post-Iraq world is again pretty obvious.
So there you have it, a short run-through of the major propaganda messages embedded in Holywood’s latest. Having said all that though, it is surprisingly enjoyable and gripping as a disaster-action movie, and as I mentioned Smith’s acting, for example his relationship with his dog who is his only friend, and his portrayal of the effects of total isolation on a man, is convincing and at times moving. This is a far better propaganda film than, say, Top Gun, which is just sickening from start to finish, or Independence Day, which is just tripe. But ultimately, this is a film with an awful lot of messages for young Americans.
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