Love, Duty, and Wisdom
A personal reflection
My spouse fell and injured herself two days ago. That’s one half of what I wish to write about.
Regarding the other half, I have written recently about how people fear and disrespect philosophy. I’ve been honest in those articles that philosophers are much to blame for the negative view of the profession.
We’re Looking at You Kant
Top of the blame list is Immanuel Kant. He was brilliant but wordy and unnecessarily complicated in his writing style. His ideas are important but difficult to understand, in particular his moral system.
Kant said that the only thing in the world that can be called an unqualified “good” is a good will. But, he added, a will is only good when it is directed at duty to the moral law. Plus, we must will that the maxims of the moral law be universally and categorically applicable — in other words, valid in all times and in all places.
As commentators observed, this means that if “lying is wrong” is a moral law, then we are only doing good if we will that it is always wrong to lie, in all places at all times, and we must consider this our categorical duty to never lie. That includes the famous example of the person who wants to murder our friend. The potential murderer asks us if we know where our friend…
