Academy 2012 Immanuel Kant and the purity of subjective experience

to everyone without having to agree nevertheless this is one thing we'll try it's fallen to me to try to to introduce you to and I've thought about it a while I think that the only way to do it in the time available is to begin from cats general philosophy the philosophy that expanded as critique of Pure Reason which is perhaps the most famous book on philosophy written in modern times and which purports to set limits to rational inquiry the greeting of Pure Reason as the name of the book suggests and argues that we human beings or we rational beings rather have the ability to know the truth of our condition but we also are tempted to think that we can know as it were beyond the truth around we can reach beyond it and know the world as it is in itself independently of our own point of view on it and the critique of pure reason is really devoted to undermining that illusion saying that are bringing on words that we can indeed have knowledge of the world burning is knowledge of the world from our perspective in a way that seems obvious but at the same time we can really have this knowledge if we have the capacity to reason and reason constantly tempts us towards the view that we can get beyond our perspective and see the world as a whole and as it is in itself many of the great works of metaphysics and and also for many of the religious thoughts that we have in our reflective moments so he starts off the critique of Pure Reason by arguing that that we do indeed have knowledge we have this knowledge because we have understanding but understanding depends upon experience but our experience can produce knowledge only if it is organized in a certain way and he argues that we organize our experience partly by situating it in space and time and partly by bringing it under concepts conceptualizing things and these concepts that the primary concepts we grasp independently of experience okay we cannot we can understand our experience because we apply concepts to it but the concepts themselves do not result from experience at least the fundamental ones they are priests opponent by experience they are the concepts that we must have if we are to make sense of our experience at all so in that case they can't be derived from experience they are what equals a PI all right concepts determine when we have applying concepts to them our experience we gain knowledge of the world but the knowledge that comes to us through formulating our experience in the form of propositions that can be true or false but this knowledge that we have of the world shows us the world as a phenomenon but not as what he calls a Newman are a phenomenon is something revealed to the senses a noumenon is a purely intellectual object something that could be thought but which can't be experienced but his argument is essentially that we can only know the world as phenomenon and not as numeral there's another language for putting this which is perhaps more abusive to us now he argues that we can know the world empirically we could know empirical truth say truths that can be confirmed by experience but we can't have knowledge of the transcendental that which transcends experience and he has a name for this thing with transcendent experiences that name is the thing in itself objects entities that have conceived independently on them and his argument is that in organizing in time we as the principal question that we're doing in today might be it starts from the subject even given that picture of the world where am i where am i you can imagine a thought experiment imagine a perfect system of scientific inquiry which gave you an account of all the laws of nature and which also gave a description of all the fundamental particles of the universe so it described everything that there is and you are looking at this this description and the whole world you still have a question you know which of these things in this world is me how would you answer that question of course you can find perhaps a description of a particular human body in it but what makes that body your body where are you in all this the scientific description doesn't mention any point of view that's it that's the whole point of science to escape from your point of view sections describe the world in something like a perspective this way but even in the expense vision of the world as a phenomenal realm a realm of objects of experience we're in that realm am i I'm not an object in the phenomenal world I'm not a piece of furniture I'm not something that I can come across in space in time and one reason saying that is of course it is that I know things about myself which I could never know about an object I know for instance I have a pain in my foot and that I'm thinking about the people in this room and also wondering whether I'm going to manage to get through this lecture without making terrible powers now those three things about me I know without going to look at anything in the in the empirical world and I know that there's only one thing that is involved in those three propositions about myself so I know that I know that unity of consciousness that's my inputs it and but also there's nothing unity of consciousness of a kind that I could come across as I come across you so where am i it's as though I'm on the edge of the world I am the thing that is processing all the information but I'm not an object of its own processing I and the thing that's that's thinking this world but I'm not saying that this thought in the world so the self seems to exist on the edge and yet I didn't think of myself in this unified way as a creature has always different mental space but one at the same time they're new ten things I couldn't really begin the enterprise of having any knowledge at all so it's only because I am in the unified self which is a subjective experience that I can have knowledge of objects at all so that's another aspect of the quickly you know reason which is vital to his thinking and it's some writing of phrase that he uses the transcendental unity of that perception that's a very it's a piece of jargon but it's stuck in their philosophical dictionary a perception means self-consciousness determine rightness unity you understand transcendental here has a very special meaning it means that this unity of self-consciousness is presupposed in all my experience if it weren't there I couldn't have experience at all so it's not something which I conclude it's not a conclusion I come true it's something which as the word transcends all my my attempts to gain knowledge Tommy because it's presuppose in all their success so that's his vision of the subject this thing on the edge of its world which has knowledge at that world but is not an I do in the world so is it something else that's there the great question a Descartes famously thought that the subject is therefore something else it's not part of the material world it's a different kind of object a spiritual object that can says but there's a in the world on the edge in the frightening moments in the bath when nothing seems to be repelled you except thinking thoughts like that in this world what happens to me Kant thought there's another aspect to this this position of subject and that is what the s that we called transcendental freedom when I'm in this state of reflecting self-consciously are on the world the world seems to behave it for me as a an open arena in which my actions are possible but their lives before me have a field of activity and I always have the question what to do just as I have the question what to think really much more interesting question what to do about it there may be there are there are people in demand but most of you must about to be tossed it otherwise you've never got it in the first place there was some existential crisis who persuaded you that you really the mistakes that you make you've had a certain stage you were free to make it the question and the question asked how to answer that with air Kant said we do find again the reason is involved but this is a legitimate use of reason remember in my five-minute summary of the pretty good theories he argued that the use of reason to try to understand the world from no point to do he's an illegitimate and he tried to show always end in contradiction but he says there is a legitimate use of reason which is the practical use the uses of the really make a bit when we answer the question what shall I do this is essentially addressed to the subject that's why this is part of our position as subjects in the world Rogers that question only arises in the first person okay so earlier rises for me rather in the first case what shall I do and it's addressed to me as an individual now of course I don't only see myself as a I have another vision of myself I also see myself as part of nature I'm a human being like you and as a part of nature I have I have a body the biology I'm bound by the laws of nature and all kinds of things go on in me of which I have no knowledge they're going on at this moment and maybe you could have better knowledge of them than I have for instance you might be a doctor who's been studying my symptoms and saying yes indeed doctor the first stages of Parkinson's so you might have to know more about me than I do just by the cannot be because that kind of knowledge is knowledge with me as as an object not as a subject but we do distinguish these two different visions that we have of ourselves and you couldn't say you see what Kant has in mind if you contrast different kinds of statements about your own future suppose someone asks you what you going to do to party well I'm seeing myself well actually I'm not I'm not justifying a prediction I would I've given myself reasons for action they're not very good reasons but they they support a decision so this did can you see that it is contrast between these two cases we're always making this contrast actually between those matters about which we regard ourselves simply as objects among others therefore we predict what we're gonna do is try and understand ourselves authenticity but those matters where we give up on the whole idea of prediction and seeing ourselves in this scientific way but actually take charge of things say look I'm gonna do this and I make a decision and I give myself reasons for it accounts thought was that this division is absolutely fundamental to our condition and corresponds the division between object and subject I can see myself swept along by the laws of nature just like everything else but I can also step in that and say no I'm not just a massage I am an i something which has a privileged perspective on its own world and which can take charge of that world by taking decisions and when I take decisions I am guided not by my own bodily processes but by my will and my will is answerable to reason not not to science that is a very important observation which you may think it is a bit of proof but nevertheless the way of actually being in the world we wouldn't be able to find our way around the world and especially to find our way around human relations if we didn't have this stance towards the world of taking responsibility for the outcome of our own choices and facing them in our reasons right this is where what cat's morality begins he says in that case we recognize that we are subjects in obedience to reason and in doing so we're not acting or not behaving as mere objects to the originators of our own actions and when I have a reason for doing something and then decided to it I have originated my own action I have a Bayes reason and I can only do that because I'm free to do so I have a certain reason in the realm of nature now how is this possible how is it possible for me to be an object among objects and still free cancer has a very interesting thought in response to that he says that actually the understanding which was our understanding of the world as it is and so on the understanding can't actually grasp this but we don't need to grasp it because we know it is true independently our reason tells us that it is proven and reason tells us that we have freedom and we know this with the same kind of certainty that we know that this thing that has now that a pain in his foot is not something that that I need to have evidence for it is something is given to me with my self knowledge it's this certification I'm free but the understanding stops at the threshold of this certainty and can't make sense of it but that doesn't matter why shouldn't be able to make sense of everything and you can it's trying to suggest that this is one of those places where in fact I haven't we couldn't they couldn't be well that's something perhaps to go back to but he thinks that from this thought he can derive a common sensical morality but we always instinctively accept any we're all rational beings assented the first point that he wants to emphasize is that when we listen to reason we are listening to something which is more like something which gives us snores but these words come to us as necessary they seem to be things that we cannot act upon suppose somebody somebody says to you if you do a certain thing you you will gain a great deal of pleasure there's a wonderful piece to waiting for awaiting you in the next room but of course you'll have to pay for this by being savagely beaten afterwards motive you so on that aren't good you balance the good and evil against itself or the cost advantage against itself in all your ordinary practical reasonings but when it comes to morality here you you have a decision to make you must betray your friend or teto or tell some devastating lie or whatever otherwise you're going to be beat in some terrible way you might say well look I'm a weak person I will betray my friend but you will know that you've been doing wrong you give question of balancing the costs and the benefits there you might be you might be persuaded by the threat to do something like betray your friend but it will always weigh upon you as something that you ought to have done you can't buy by a calculation and this sort develop into a complete system of morality when it comes to to moral thinking we are confronted with absolute unnecessary laws which bind us irrespective of what we want and irrespective of any of our self-interested calculations and most people when they think about it recognize that this is true of course but we always try to slip out of moral obligations and say well they're not really obligations we try and rewrite them so that they don't have quite the force that they thought they had but once they are the poorest and executives modelled then we recognize that there's no getting out of them to go against them as possible of course because we have three beings in doing so we are also committing as committing a crime or putting ourselves in the wrong position visa be ourselves so this is peculiar feature of the moral law that it is necessary is something which he he wanted to explain anything and his I thought was it's necessary because it is indeed reason that that leads to it all the things that reason leads to us do necessary Universal necessary matters rather than merely continuously report to explain this he made of famous distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives which again reasoning if I say to you if you want to if you want to enjoy yourself this evening then you should go for a walk around the lake that is a piece of advice which has wait for you only to the extent that you accept that you want to enjoy yourself if makes it into a hypothetical imperative we're telling you to do something only on a certain condition but Kant says moral in territories are not like that they are all categorical they say you ought to do something not if you want X or Y you want to do it but you just altered to it and it has an absolute an incontrovertible character and that is what we need to explain how it is that we radical things can constantly come up against these strange imperatives which don't refer to our desires or our interests they're telling us what we must do without being open their mind will be he imagines the following thought you are faced with the question what to do you know you have a choice you can go one of two ways and if you are faced with that question the first thing that you ask yourself is is what would be either Maxim governing reaction what should be the principle governing reaction the principle that my reason would be able to accept so that it will be justified in my eyes we always do the same when we're thinking about some serious decision we think of what the principle would be upon which we take the decision simply to take it on no principle tall by tossing a coin whatever it is to try it is to avoid the rational choice but of course we don't really avoid it even better than that we're to make a choice genuinely rational and one from which were generally responsible in which our freedom is fully exercised we must have this alone because reason alone then it must be it must be it must be then we'll this is just a philosophical way of saying something which is also said by the great religions but we should do unto others as we would have them do not to make exceptions in your own case always to act upon that principle but you could recommend to another now who thinks that once you thought started thinking in that way under principles what if you in particular are very important since we have to think in terms of reason being a motoring for all of us this means that we must respect reason in all of us we mustn't just regard other human beings as though they were animals or instruments for our purpose we must regard them as rational beings too and that means respecting them in a certain way respecting those rational beings offering them reasons to do what we want them to do rather than the just compelling them to do so all right so this is that this is something that is incumbent upon us as rational beings in other words that we don't try to force people to do things we reason with them and see everything that they can accept our reasons and if they can't they might persuade us so that that's how I should do each other not this mirror of for mere instruments but those rational beings and he put this in a very poetic way he said that the categorical imperative also tells us that we should treat rational beings in ourselves as well as in others as ends and not as means only it's a very poignant way of putting it miss Wheatley doesn't he never really tells us what it is to treat someone as an end but we know what it is to treat some of the means slavery rape robbery or the very people as objects use be felt down the centuries since the owner thought that in fact it could be formulated another way in terms of kingdom of ends another we should act as though the maximum governing actions were a law of nature in a kingdom of ends in other words as though we should act as though our principles could be used to lay down the legislation for for an ideal world we should always have to serve our principles through service ideals in some perfect world all these thing is a just three ways in which you but he believed my peak was right that they correspond to intuitions that we all have will have them at least when we're being serious with each other which is not very often but in those vital conversations direct about his views that this system of morality first of all corresponds to the moral thinking of all ordinary decent people anyway they don't necessarily formulated in this philosophical way but it's there in their thinking because that's what freedom is system but he also believed that all of reality depends upon the exercise of the will and the will is the most important feature of the human human being to which we refer whenever we're making moral judgments he even says that there is nothing absolutely good in this world or out of it say a good will does that that's the what makes the difference would be a good burst all the benefits we can imagine but within itself but a will becomes corrupted that it becomes a 30-person heteronomous that's to say instead of being its own law it takes it's more from something else in particular from appetite from the appetites of ambitions and interests which don't have any moral force and you can see the difference here he thinks if you contrasted the behavior of a shopkeeper who had some self interest it's always honest with his he knows that if he's not honest in his interest to be honest that is somebody who is not acting from the moral law he's simply acting in accordance with the moral law his will is apt to be governed by his own self-interest rather than by morality the shopkeeper however who behaves honestly to his customers even in a time when of crisis when of course that he's being treated by them but nevertheless he has no option but to treat that's what the moral law bars either somebody who is acting autonomously his will is autonomous and not governed by anything any interest outside itself he is the truly moral bus the one who is acting from the moral door rather than merely in accordance with it we know this distinction in our everyday life - it's a distinct regime of morality and legality we all of us obey the law because it's in our interest to do so some of us would possibly obey the law even if it weren't to do so but that's where the real test lies how we behave when the Nazis or the communist takeover what are you going to do that when it's no longer invest to obey the moral laws which you feel the binding on you right now when is this leave us then I've got a few minutes I want to say something about - about what the relevance of panties - to us today obviously I've been engaging in a certain amount of special pleading I haven't allow them to appear as an 18th century eccentric from living in Cummings presenting very much as though he were a member of this who didn't actually formulate many of the ideas which govern the modern world or govern the decent people in the world those interested only in carnal relations he made these important distinctions between the subject and the object he argued that we are all subjects and are also all objects but the statute is not something other than the object it's like a way of seeing you and you can see what he had in mind if you think of a picture a portrait in oils of somebody he considers them various thickness spread upon a canvas but you see in it the base of the it appears to you they're not because it's something else it's not something other than those pigments on the canvas it's just something that you are seeing in a completely different way you're seeing it under the aspect of personal dance between freedom and that's something like something like that goes on when in your own life you can see yourself as your doctor sees you on the on the operating table there's a complicated object which is being you know getting three things from cradle to grave or you can see that yourself in the way that you do when you are making these fundamental choices in which case you are seeing yourself as a surfer and seeing us having a completely different way so that you do as it were taking up position do you see that erases I know it's only a metaphor but that's the kind of thing he's trying to say and it comes out in the distinction I made a wedding between predicting and deciding between explaining something as far as the doctor birth and justifying it through reasons these distinctions are absolutely fundamental to us and they are connected with all right another distinction between the animal and the person and cancer is famous really but using this concept of the person to define what it was was trying to say he was trying to put across the the idea that the modern morality is a morality of persons with seeing each other as persons taking each other seriously as terms that means not treating each other as animals but giving each other that special position in that each other's world which we reserve for the free being so behind this emerging a concept of the person which has been fitted for our moral in at least in European civilization ever since a person is a thing that can refer to itself in the first person case something like you and me which we say I and in doing so take up this position on the edge of things that I've been such a such a creature can engage in special kinds of relations relation that that occurs between argue the eye and human relation is something it's absolutely familiar to you and you know it and not just through your way you talk to each other but also the way you look at each other the gestures you make towards each other and the fact that when you're confronted with another person you're automatically put in a position of accountability that person doesn't stand before you as an object goes east before use another subject and if you have to account yourself or you can't just knock him over without giving reason and they nor can you simply ignore what he says or what he does without trying in some way to to give satisfactory view of why you were doing so so there are Rises between persons this kind of continuous dialogue to which they engage with each other trying to alter each other's context conduct through reasoning rather than to a course and in which they allocate to each other the kind of individual space a space which each of them occupies from which he addresses the world and this space is what we summarized in the content of a right there is some all of us have rights unless they think the sphere of interests which cannot be invaded without being wrong you have a right a free movement which I can't prevent you from doing without invading your rights and therefore wrong in you and we think in this in these terms in all our everyday lives and also physical demons - there are certain things that you can't do to people because they are persons not because that it might be in their interest to do it if you might think that it really would be useful and our lives are full of these in traditions which create around each of us a wall of protection which can't be breached without half of the standards and you can see why this emerges in it the whole point of having rights is that it means that when we do have relations with each other they are based on consent not on force so what has emerged in the world of humanity and because it is a world of persons is a community based upon consultation being able to take that special perspective on the edge of things the amazing thing is that those technicalities actually have their if you like that political result in the kind of social order of which we are the beneficiaries and then we also have a everybody complains about the surrounding justice evading the fact that when the grievances that you all would have otherwise wouldn't be here presumably looking for compensation for them nevertheless we know very well to live in a world where each of us does enjoy rice which are not simply the rights laid down by law but the rights that we all acknowledge in our dealings with each other because we actually live in a community family the performance and sense and then is really what Kant was getting at that the moral law is what makes this possible the moral law makes it possible for us to live in the communities consensual communities but it only does so because we don't because we are ready with the kind of absolute force to be what has for us the kind of absolute force the descendants okay peaceful you have to acquire each other to each particular case not just politics is not effective legal gets its work so these verses my notes on history seems to present distress just so if the rise into society we enjoy is these legs in all sizes is that what does she need a Grenadier new it's not how they walk way were the owners of pants gossipy be generalized outside European culture I was very struck by the phrase really natural to reason of silence mainly because there's a trend at the moment of trying a line between okay so I just wondered how you beat the social because you kind of went through our new campus which I believe is possession you know they're universal how do you balance the ionization because I don't think the true subject there is social Universal Maxim's but rather of reasoning to the particular case what what is right and wrong in this case might not be what is right and wrong in some other similar evening case because all the details have to be poured in I would say although this is extremely different I always say that in the end it is not an objection that of course it is true that working out of the universal maxim through the details of a particular case might lead to incredibly fine distinctions but it is the working out of the universal maxim that will do this exercise of the common law in English law you will see this process in action in English common law before the disease of the European Union hitters well judges would have to decide each case on this merits taking into consideration whatever precedents they were and if they want to come to this different decision from the President to distinguish the case so there is something about this case which is different which of which therefore ensures that we don't all we shouldn't apply that previous maximum and that's another way of saying that therefore we are looking for another maximum for this case but because it's only on the strength of that distinction of having actually found a in the quality of the case rather being the individual that it is that you can say that it should be decided otherwise so if you look at the structural Condor reasoning it does follow something like the IAM paradigm these that's what I think and it's one reason why our system of justice has been so successful it has been responsible responsive to individual cases they are the second question from The Grudge what extent is this philosophy as timeless as it represents itself this is another very serious objection the can't can obviously presented his philosophy as the timeless universal truths about human nature and people will respond as you need that no this is simply an expression of reticular Protestant consciousness the emergency in Germany at the time of the Enlightenment since been superseded again I think that the counter these would say no that is not true what what berries is the application of this that of course is true that our moral thinking delivers different results in different as it inevitably must but ultimately there is this foundation which all humanity shares and if you think of that second correlation of the categorical imperative you know that to treat humanity means only that is something that of course is often disobeyed in history it's always pushing through the envelope of people's desires making itself felt throughout the old testament and through the things like the obviously where people treat each other very differently it's still pushing itself through and saying this is how people should be able to each other even if they don't somebody asked the question the relation between the kind of reason I've been talking about or can talks about and scientific reasoning and what they have in common and what distinguishes them I think this is again another very important question of course goes to the heart of cat's philosophy and that he wants to argue and I agree with him that the reason has different applications that we reasoned towards the truth of things by scientific experiment and through construction of theories in the case of the moral life we don't proceed by experiment and theory building if we did we'd end up treating each other away.we too practical to believe we're not talking about somebody said forget to protect from burns super sweet soups here we're putting underlying metaphysics of irrationality I think if I understand the question right easy it's really asking whether there what is it that actually persuades me that I shouldn't do that I suppose I can enslave someone tomorrow why shouldn't I do it is it just that it's a contradiction or and rationality to do this in which case why respect reason with us this is again a deep question has can't really identified a motive rather than simply a way of describing what we do have you really got a motive to obey reason that's is thought okay that wants to say that reason is itself a motive to action many moral philosophers say no this can only work if there isn't also another structure of motivation which pushes us in the direction of reason although we do and have to think in terms of this kind of calculus of rights and duties that canvas rewards that calculus only has wait for us because we are also sympathetic beings who feel the feel the impulse to this I concept the self-concept requires a social context my own view of the matter this is not talking at the moment morality is we can only get to that point through is resolved try and link back to the second or lutheran is defiant resistance once you have a concept there and I'm thinking about what you said was about you're gonna show keeper your continously illness shopkeeper who keep shot Jesus lady job not out of any self interest and therefore gets ripped off by his customer so does this honest shopkeeper had a right to resist what's going on or should he just suffer the abuses evil that men do in his heart as sort of a silent witness to death which is so that what Luther was saying about them witnesses do evil things but you should obey nonetheless it seems a bit of a shame for the I was they ask something ask diesel to see the relationship between handsome a eagle and Hegel's analysis of can see a morality the role of social or the nation into playing house of morality I suppose can't cast philosophy is operating at a level of abstraction sisters it doesn't address particular social forms and latterly Hegel yeah there's the need kind of universe so there's a lot of elaboration in which you're beginning to address the social and as clearly significant kind of elaboration later in marks you know so is it is it visit simply a question of a can't can side things being prior and and the idea of the principle intentionality that consciousness is always directed towards something so we don't have to say there's me and there's a tree in the world that I perceive but my perception of the truth can't be there like this I need to be the mobility as you this is very is very attractive as one the text before is interesting areas it is expert if I sense we with others who are also pursuing that idea and what happens in the situation of the conflicts in community where after we those people subconsciously you want to corrupt quite to the instruments we want to have the right to impose their will in the interests of who is being exploited by his customers business does he have a right to resist and refer to roofers talked about obligation to obey in Princes special moral philosophers when when do you have the right to resist other people's wrongdoing and what kind of actions are you entitled to take and I would say that actually the law has developed which are very close to this violence and in the case of he has the right to take his business elsewhere or not to do business with the customer so we're choosing him whether it doesn't part of them that has a right to cheat them in agree with that so there are circumstances in which it is impossible to be an honest shopkeeper so you have to be not only something else but there are certain professions which is not profession comes under this question which is a very good one if hence their transposition critique of pure reason is right but all of our knowledge is from our own point of view then how can he ever be entitled to abstract from that point of view towards laws it is a very important difficulty which we have to address in the pretty good pure reason he's not arcing them I know the world simply from my point of view I know it from the point of view that I share with others which is the point of view of possible experience that's how it does it so the world that I know is one that I share with others but if I only share with them because they also share that particular point of view it's not an individual one to do it's a collective one but it's as it were made available by experience itself in a similar way the moral point of view is made available by reason itself and it takes the form of these abstract principles so so that's how I think those two be reconciled doesn't address - with English there's a young lady next to produce some frightening authorities now I have to say that certainly though things have occurred in the 20th and 21st century to have this affection for problematizing and you refer to think medicine but I think really is really poor so yeah the idea that the all our states of mind have to be seen not in purely in terms of subjective awareness of them but more particularly in terms of the functional direction and that is absolutely true we have to expound this in a slightly different way to satisfy that requirement whether this idea of the other which you are associated in that form made any great difference is however one of those issues which will never be solved in my lifetime might be the idea of the other came crashing into French philosophy as a result of the whole stream of them and they all came up with this idea the concept of the other is an important part of our human understanding and without it we can't really make sense of the human world and my own view is that that the subjectivity is deeply rooted in the experience in our being it's only fully understand that being in time that we'll know what it is being subjects but it stands to reason he time is the form of innocence in other words that that thing which which presents me with the with the sense of myself is the time Joel said what about the other two prospect postulates on this pan wanted to do to derive from his moral philosophy a kind of theology theological appendix in which he said that in fact all of this only makes sense because we are postulating human freedom and I've really touched on that that is something that we can't fully understand we just know it's true and he wanted to go on and say we must also postulate the existence of God and the immortality of the person if we are to make sense of the kind of reasoning of the morality of its own nature thrust upon us and I would say that we can make sense of this reasoning that planet okay I may not persuade if you've got a sense of it without those postulates whether what happens in conflict where the majority wants to impose its will upon the minority because the minority is not behaving in a Kantian way well we're in that situation majority imposes its if it's a Content majority imposes its will through the rule of law there is non Canton's who want to conspire against okay we're nearly out of time we are going to just take five or so one question each very very quickly for Joe don't kill you come back on all of the don't free time just use what you will from number to sum up and send us into nowhere when information so entertaining boxing is historical would you play that tune subject to the object and slightly looking back things but you need to Havel making might be honest in terms of conflict as opposed to your consultation consent and compromise but that relationship conflicts based on new ideas or what is briar is it just that it hasn't changed is it just about a matter of numbers at what point does that change from one thing to the next I still retain is very busy okay so it's peanut in the middle and then over there quick quick although in okay okay back how does the Catherine marriages help with conflict resolution essentially it does it doesn't leave us in a better situation something like that you can think of all these appeals to abstract principles of Reason in another way and the way that his theory of feeling his way towards the same thing we often think that conflicts have no rhythm until we imagine ourselves in the position of the impartial judge somebody who has no interest in their outcomes and then we step back and we we will very quickly see as in the judgment of Sullivan who is right and who is wrong and that's really what Kant is doing in a different way with is putting it in a social context but Kant is saying that we have that social context that they were always within us we could always put ourselves in the position of the powerful judge and then we see who is right and who is wrong and if the parties to a conflict can both do this then the resolution is there the problem is we are overcome by passion and by was pathological motives that prevent us from cleanness yet Sabino said the questions are to being too skeptical that there can't is really tried to say that we're moving on from rufus reliance on faith into the new conception of the of the moral life in which we have the authority within ourselves we don't have to submit to an authority outside ourselves which is the is what faith is asking Institute and that is true that's exactly what he was doing and he it's why he was so influential but he didn't just say that he produced an incredibly powerful argument for thinking it must be true but over there said how do we how we can respond that dear that the law is in itself moves in a direction somehow axiomatic system and then you raise the question of the axe Matic systems will be putting putting question by proofs that proves to the 18 completeness and so on I'm not sure that that is strictly relevant but nevertheless the that the Canton approach to lore is something axiomatic with an authority independent of social context or have been put in question by critical legal theory no it could certainly be including question in the sense of the question that's being asked but I don't think actually it doesn't I think it is a gesture based upon a kind of application to the philosophy of law or various frankfurt school conceptions of what a human community is I think Peters having a load of jargon but it may be that I'm prejudiced well as I hope I am reason is because you can't get through life without criticism this is the right area we know where freedom tells us that we really must accept this and he's really asking us to place morality on a kind of giant a gigantic bamboo but then of course if what he's saying is right it could be that the assumption that we're not free is also a so again a big gamble and to what would happen if you based morality on that you know it wouldn't get to halfway to the satisfactory position like you rightly said that of course ideals have to be related to reality they they're not just fairytales they are representations of how the world ought to be if those forces and react and things contained in it our satisfactorily brought to fruition that and that's what camp really means by the kingdom of âge he doesn't mean that it's a completely unreal place it's the human world as it really should be if we acted out promptly those things which are best in us into subjective reason ACLU's free will cats point is that properly understood reason and free will are the same idea but they're the same idea but described from

Channel: Academy of Ideas

Views: 12,197

Keywords: ideas, Academy, 2012, institute of ideas, roger scruton, philosophy, moral philosophy, kant, ethics, Immanuel Kant (Philosopher), reason, free will, law

Id: k7EvvkrX9D0

Length: 93min 6sec (5586 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2013