tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post7719073461015204635..comments2023-04-13T02:45:50.515-07:00Comments on The Ends of Thought: Kant's Moral Psychology (III): Endorsement, Determinism, and MotivesRoman Altshulerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-7195648536864611932008-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:002008-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:00Sure, I agree with this, and in my first post in t...Sure, I agree with this, and in my first post in this series I accused L&K of precisely the conflation you mention here: the conflation of moral psychology and moral theory. But I don't think we should drop moral psychology from Kant altogether, because there is a crucial aspect of moral psychology in Kant, developed in the Second Critique chapter on the Incentives, and in Book I of the Religion.<BR/><BR/>This is perhaps clearest in Kant's Lectures on Ethics, where he clearly warns against the conflation L&K make:<BR/><BR/>"We must first notice that there are two points to consider; the principle of the discrimination of our obligation and the principle of its performance or execution. We must distinguish between measuring-rod and mainspring [Triebfeder--drive or incentive]. The measuring-rod is the principle of discrimination [Diiudication]; the mainstrping is the principle of the performance of our obligation. Confusion between these has led to complete falsity in the sphere of ethics." (36)<BR/><BR/>A little further: "The supreme principle of all moral judgment lies in the understanding: that of moral incentive to action lies in the heart. This motive is moral feeling. We must guard against confusing the principle of the judgment with the principle of the motive." (36-37) (In his mature works, of course, the principle of adjudication lies in reason, not in the understanding.)<BR/><BR/>So the ground of obligation certainly does not lie in principles we choose, as L&K claim, because then the obligation would be entirely subjective. So we absolutely cannot derive morality from any moral psychology. On the other hand, in order for this principle to apply to us, we must have the means of being moved by it. And these means are psychological. This is not an empirical moral psychology, but it is still moral psychology.<BR/><BR/>You are absolutely right to point out that moral feeling cannot be the ground of the moral. The reverse must be true: morality must be the ground of moral feeling. But the examination of moral feeling as the incentive by which we can be moved to do our duty is important for Kant. So important, in fact, that Kant famously describes it in the following terms:<BR/><BR/>"The understanding, obviously, can judge, but to give to this judgment of the understanding a compelling force, to make it an incentive that can move the will to perform the action--this is the philosopher's stone!" (45) The moral feeling connects us, as sensible acting beings, with our pure wills, which dictate the moral law to us. Without an investigation of moral feeling, you've left the philosopher's stone out of philosophy.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-16582814565455569702008-04-03T13:07:00.000-07:002008-04-03T13:07:00.000-07:00No, I do not think that we disagree about anything...No, I do not think that we disagree about anything of substance <I>supra</I>. Having read your three part defense of Kant, as represented in Joshua Knobe's and Brian Leiter's "Case for Nietzchean Moral Psychology", however, I wished to point out that Kant's proxies had a devastating rejoinder available to them. It is simple, not subject to the kind of semantic thrust and parry that your three part <I>riposte</I> is bound to invite, and irrefutable on the merits.<BR/><BR/>When Knobe and Leiter typify Kant's rational foundation for morals as a "tradition in moral psychology" they entirely misrepresent him:<BR/><BR/>"From Kant, by contrast, has come the rationalist tradition in moral psychology,4 according to which reason is the source of moral motivation, and the mechanism for moral action is one in which rational agents legislate for themselves certain principles on the basis of which they consciously act."<BR/><BR/>Kant states specifically, and supports repeatedly and with vigor, that moral psychology occupies an entirely different realm than rational metaphysics. His position is that, no matter what emprical studies of moral psychology might show they can have absolutely no effect upon the question as to what is a genuine moral injunction or act. With or without supporting empirical studies, Kant's proxy can boldly assert, in his behalf, that psychology can inform one of nothing beyond a "moral sense," which does not begin to be, in itself, "a foundation of the moral".<BR/><BR/>Again, L&K:<BR/><BR/>"In the Kantian tradition of moral psychology, moral obligations are grounded in principles that each agent consciously chooses."<BR/><BR/>According to Kant, "moral psychology" is the foundation of no genuine "moral obligation" <I>whatsoever</I>. Having seriously misconstrued Kant's thesis such that "the alleged special sense, the moral feeling," substitutes for a genuine moral injunction, thus bringing such an injunction under the aegis of "moral psychology" is a serious failure to address a serious issue of proper categories. L&K's statement of Kant's position is, as the result, exactly the opposite of Kant's own. And the fact is central to their thesis, which, as the result, contains at least one major flaw.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-79556084681446856952008-04-02T21:36:00.000-07:002008-04-02T21:36:00.000-07:00Sure. I don't think we disagree about anything of ...Sure. I don't think we disagree about anything of substance here. I mean only that there are some claims about our psychology involved in Kant (not about the moral sense as such--specifically, yes, Kant fully denies that we can use moral sense as a reliable guide to the good). I am thinking of things like this: "the capacity of taking such an interest in the law (or of having respect for the moral law itself) is really moral feeling." [Crit. Practical Reason, 5:80] Or: "Respect for the moral law is therefore the sole and undoubted moral drive, and this feeling is directed to no being except on this basis." [5:78] There are lots of weird inconsistencies in that whole discussion, but some basic points are these: As finite beings, we need incentives and feelings to drive us to actions. (This is a fact about our psychology.) Pathological feelings are ones determined by an object; in order for there to be a genuine moral incentive--without which we could not act morally--there must be a non-pathological feeling, i.e., a feeling that is the direct effect of the moral law on our sensibility. This feeling is respect.<BR/><BR/>So I think there are psychological considerations involved. Nothing about our psychology is involved in dictating right and wrong, of course--only the moral law can do that. But some features of our psychology are involved in enabling us to act on the moral law. So with regard to issues of motivation, psychology does come into play.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-58908603261900328242008-04-02T20:54:00.000-07:002008-04-02T20:54:00.000-07:00"Kant's account of respect for the moral law is a ..."Kant's account of respect for the moral law is a psychological account, that combines the requirements of pure practical reason with a contingent fact about us, i.e., that we can act only on incentives and toward ends."<BR/><BR/>Surely, Kant himself preempts his own "account" such that it can only be dead-on-arrival:<BR/><BR/>"...there is the alleged special sense, the moral feeling. The appeal to it is superficial, since those who cannot think expect help from feeling, even with respect to that which concerns universal laws; they do so even though feelings naturally differ so infinitely in degree that they are incapable of furnishing a uniform standard of the good and bad, and also in spite of the fact that one cannot validly judge for others by means of his own feeling. Nevertheless, the moral feeling is nearer to morality and its dignity, inasmuch as it pays virtue the honor of ascribing the satisfaction and esteem for her dirctly to morality, and does not, as it were, say to her face that it is not her beauty but only our advantage which attaches us to her."<BR/><BR/>[Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, sec 2, "Classification of all possible principles... of Heteronomy". Lewis Beck White tr.]<BR/><BR/>Still, he gives credit where credit is due. He just doesn't feel that much (if any) is due.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-53562562393886418902008-04-01T22:02:00.000-07:002008-04-01T22:02:00.000-07:00Hi GWP, thanks for the comment. As you know, I agr...Hi GWP, thanks for the comment. As you know, I agree with much of what you say. I'm not entirely sure that "moral psychology" is itself such a problematic term, though. Of course L&K simply assume that moral psychology must be wholly empirical, and this does rule out Kant's position from the start. But then the problem is not with moral psychology per se, but with this conception of it.<BR/><BR/>For Kant, of course, psychology is mostly an empirical field (he has doubts about whether it can be a science, for reasons worked out fairly well by Davidson). I would say that "moral psychology" for Kant would involve precisely that: a psychology of the sort of being to whom morality applies. That is, given the legitimacy of the moral law, what psychological features must human beings have? Kant's account of respect for the moral law is a psychological account, that combines the requirements of pure practical reason with a contingent fact about us, i.e., that we can act only on incentives and toward ends.Roman Altshulerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570099479055051251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4639421058590597640.post-4421934657931042212008-04-01T20:21:00.000-07:002008-04-01T20:21:00.000-07:00The unspoken is everything here. L&K attack Kant'...The unspoken is everything here. L&K attack Kant's "moral psychology". This entails a profound assumption: that morals are established from out of psychological norms. But that is precisely the contradiction of Kant's position, and, therefore, Kant is defeated not by legitimate refutation but by assumption. <BR/><BR/>According to Kant, once morality is derived from psychology it is no longer morality. Instead it is inclination, an impossibly unstable foundation that prevents any fixed point from which to derive "the moral act". Quote-unquote morals that are based upon inclination are merely the imposition of one segment of society over another, are only a statement of compulsion. Nietzche, for all post-modernism has airbrushed him, agrees that morals are compulsion, in the end, and advocates that the segments of a society most functionally imbued with the Will to Power will be the segment doing the compelling in a healthy society. Compulsion via the herd, according to N.'s psycho-sociological model, is societally unhealthy and profoundly corrupt and thus immoral.<BR/><BR/>It is the absolute core of Kant's position that all truly moral acts can only occur from the well-spring of a rationally (i.e. non-empirically) derived, <I>a priori</I> first principle (a.k.a. categorical imperative). Kant's position is that moral acts <I>can not be</I> psychologically derived. Once they are psychologically derived they are no longer morals.<BR/><BR/>Should L&K feel that they can successfully make the case that Kant's categorical imperative fails because there is no such thing as a "fixed point" or "a priori," then it is <I>there</I> that they should begin <I>in re</I> Kant. Refuting the old professor may just prove more difficult than they think once his position regarding a metaphysics of morals is actually addressed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com