Who Is The More EVIL: Rand, or Kant?

[Lark]

I forgot to add that I don't see how that makes Rand evil anyway, even if she held that kind of belief.

Zero degrees of empathy?

 

[Lark]

Hitler > Kant > Rand in evilness!

You is in Uber's bedroom, stealing his wall paper!

 

[Lark]

In all seriousness, that Hitler guy, never a damn smile. How can you get that popular and even be popular with Orwell without cracking a smile.

 

[sprinkles]

In all seriousness, that Hitler guy, never a damn smile. How can you get that popular and even be popular with Orwell without cracking a smile.

I've seen him smiling a few times. It's actually not a bad smile.

Anyway, to continue with my thought from earlier, I think trying to prescribe a philosophy for morality is like trying to prescribe an exact science for music. If it were that simple to reduce things to a particular set of statements then there would be no accounting for taste. We'd just say 'a robot is fine, too!'

But there are more to these things than the sum of their apparent parts - especially when the apparent parts aren't necessarily all the parts.

 

[Lark]

I've seen him smiling a few times. It's actually not a bad smile.

Anyway, to continue with my thought from earlier, I think trying to prescribe a philosophy for morality is like trying to prescribe an exact science for music. If it were that simple to reduce things to a particular set of statements then there would be no accounting for taste. We'd just say 'a robot is fine, too!'

But there are more to these things than the sum of their apparent parts - especially when the apparent parts aren't necessarily all the parts.

Here Erich Fromm actually did this, in his book Man For Himself.

Its based upon the psychological basis for ethics, summed up in Love Others As Thyself, its solid, although in addition to this, the golden rule, I'd suggest there needs to be the golden mean too, things in moderation aint bad.

 

[sprinkles]

Here Erich Fromm actually did this, in his book Man For Himself.

Its based upon the psychological basis for ethics, summed up in Love Others As Thyself, its solid, although in addition to this, the golden rule, I'd suggest there needs to be the golden mean too, things in moderation aint bad.

Indeed. And in fact I'd say that prescriptions should be so general as this. Mainly because setting up a system intended to realize morality does not instill morality. Someone who follows the rules doesn't necessarily become a moral person.

For a moral person, rules can be a tool to help maintain rightness and accountability. For an immoral person, rules tell them the location of all the obstacles for gaming the system.

 

[onemoretime]

Indeed. And in fact I'd say that prescriptions should be so general as this. Mainly because setting up a system intended to realize morality does not instill morality. Someone who follows the rules doesn't necessarily become a moral person.

For a moral person, rules can be a tool to help maintain rightness and accountability. For an immoral person, rules tell them the location of all the obstacles for gaming the system.

Good point. Moral rules, on the other hand, are not only mishandled based on such a dichotomy. An otherwise moral person may perform an immoral act, particularly if under pressure from another source, if there is no specific prohibition on that act. That person may also immorally fail to perform a moral duty to another, if the act constituting the performance of that duty is proscribed by moral rules. Furthermore, both the permissibility of the first act and the impermissibility of the second act may constitute a coherent moral reasoning, and may be justified outside specific contexts.

Kant is appealing in that he makes a sound argument for the immorality of acts that interfere with another's capability to engage their own moral reasoning.

 

[Lark]

I'm a socialist.

 

[sprinkles]

Good point. Moral rules, on the other hand, are not only mishandled based on such a dichotomy. An otherwise moral person may perform an immoral act, particularly if under pressure from another source, if there is no specific prohibition on that act. That person may also immorally fail to perform a moral duty to another, if the act constituting the performance of that duty is proscribed by moral rules. Furthermore, both the permissibility of the first act and the impermissibility of the second act may constitute a coherent moral reasoning, and may be justified outside specific contexts.

Kant is appealing in that he makes a sound argument for the immorality of acts that interfere with another's capability to engage their own moral reasoning.

Yeah I think Kant had some good ideas within their own context. However it seems that he attempted to boil things down to fundamentally rational agents.

He says 'I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law'. Seems like a good thing. His philosophy though (and Rand's as well) seems entirely riddled with 'the law of the instrument' a.k.a. Maslow's Hammer: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

Or in other words, their philosophies arise from the values that they already have, such as happiness or the necessity of rationality. In a sense they beg the question. Rationality in Kant's sense for example revolves around rationality in the sense of making a reasoned and optimal choice, which requires the formulation of many background assumptions - something which almost nobody actually does that I know of.

 

[xisnotx]

I liked Kant, didn't think he was evil.
Rand, I've never read.

 

[Coriolis]

First of all, good and evil are too Boolean for me to generally use the word evil. Secondly, humans are too wide a variety and long a series of consequential events for me to just call a human being as a whole bad, except as some kind of average. What I can do assess the moral philosophies proposed by both individuals and determine which of the two is more conducive toward that which my moral philosophy considers wrong.

To that end I would say Rand is worse, though I rather dislike Kantian deontological ethics. Both philosophies often encourage a human being to do things that would run against the most happiness for the most people for the most time, but while Kant's prescriptions only even incidentally do this, Rand's philosophy sometimes explicitly encourages people to do things that are mutually exclusive with that outcome, thus leaving me to presume that a person acting on Kantian ethics in a way that is acceptable to my philosophy is more plausible than one doing so by acting on Randian ethics.

Good and evil may be too boolean, but the idea of happiness is too amorphous. It is hard enough for one individual to determine with any accuracy what will truly make him/her happy. Determining this in the aggregate for a collection of individuals is an impossibility. We need a different yardstick against which to measure our actions.

Ayn Rand felt that a person should, within certain confines, pursue their own happiness, which makes her morality, in that sense, a morality of feeling. Kant believed that a person had to avoid making what he considered to be logical errors, and as far as he was concerned, feelings or instincts had little do with it; good action was "purely a matter of reason," whatever pure reason is (I think efforts toward "pure reason" are a form denial and self-punishment).

An interesting perspective. Just what do you mean by the highlighted? What does it deny, and how is it a punishment?

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Good and evil may be too boolean, but the idea of happiness is too amorphous. It is hard enough for one individual to determine with any accuracy what will truly make him/her happy. Determining this in the aggregate for a collection of individuals is an impossibility. We need a different yardstick against which to measure our actions.

Utilitarianism is solid enough for a moral philosophy. It is a merit of utilitarianism that it mostly leaves that yardstick in the hands of something more dependable, something like rationalism or empiricism.

 

[Mal12345]

Please, are you the random Randian who keeps turning up from time to time to troll the forums with posts about your hero, I get Rand because Rand is easy, selfishness is a virtue, no sacrifice no way never, certainly not self-sacrifice, capitalism is the bomb and has not casualties or collateral damage. Its all balls though. Kant was seriously intellectually superior to a bad novelists from Russia.

Nope, not a Randroid. I think Kant has far more good things to say.

 

[Mal12345]

Zero degrees of empathy?

You mean she was a typical INTJ, or let's say, an average type 1.

I can't speak to how much empathy Rand herself had, only that it is lacking in her philosophy.

 

[Mal12345]

Good point. Moral rules, on the other hand, are not only mishandled based on such a dichotomy. An otherwise moral person may perform an immoral act, particularly if under pressure from another source, if there is no specific prohibition on that act. That person may also immorally fail to perform a moral duty to another, if the act constituting the performance of that duty is proscribed by moral rules. Furthermore, both the permissibility of the first act and the impermissibility of the second act may constitute a coherent moral reasoning, and may be justified outside specific contexts.

Kant is appealing in that he makes a sound argument for the immorality of acts that interfere with another's capability to engage their own moral reasoning.

More importantly, it stifles the will of a moral agent. If someone is holding a gun to your head, or appealing to consequentialism, or saying that God exists and will send you to Hell, it all amounts to a weakening of the will.

 

[sprinkles]

Utilitarianism is solid enough for a moral philosophy. It is a merit of utilitarianism that it mostly leaves that yardstick in the hands of something more dependable, something like rationalism or empiricism.

Rationality and empiricism are quite fine and dependable, for those who are rational and empirical.

However we might often find that those who are rational and empirical aren't necessarily the ones in need of moral fiber.

It's like putting warning labels on products but the people who would actually read it already know better and don't have to read it.

 

[Mole]

Utilitarianism is solid enough for a moral philosophy. It is a merit of utilitarianism that it mostly leaves that yardstick in the hands of something more dependable, something like rationalism or empiricism.

Yes, Oz is an experiment in Utilitarianism and so we can see the results in front of us.

Utilitarianism gives the end as the greatest good for the greatest number, and the means as reason and evidence.

 

[Ginkgo]

LOL@ Morality thread about morality.

 

[Coriolis]

Rationality and empiricism are quite fine and dependable, for those who are rational and empirical.

However we might often find that those who are rational and empirical aren't necessarily the ones in need of moral fiber.

It's like putting warning labels on products but the people who would actually read it already know better and don't have to read it.

I see a bit of this in Rand. If you pursue your own will, while not coercing anyone else, what results is very close to what all those morals and ethics aim to achieve, with far less drama and wasted energy.

 

[Within]

LOL@ Morality thread about morality.

I heard that you like morality...