Isaac Chan’s Reviews > The Basis of Morality > Status Update

Schopy argues that it's clear that Kant's famous leading principle isn't CATEGORICAL, but is in reality a HYPOTHETICAL Imperative.

Simple intuition - the Imperative tacitly assumes the condition that the law isn't just established for what I DO, but what is done TO ME as well; so I am not just active, but passive as well: 'eventualiter'.

I cannot possibly wish for injustice - very Rawlsian!

Note 3/3:

Think of 'intuitive perception' as some sort of common-sense intellectual intuition. The understanding immediately applies the intellectual forms of the Categories to sensory data.

But do animals know causality a priori?

Note 2/3:
We come to have 'intuitive perception' by directly referring the senses' Impressions to their cause. This presents itself as an 'external object' under the appropriate mode of intuition, i.e. in space. This supposedly proves that the Law of Causality is known a priori - since experience itself is only possible thru the same Law (I don't necessarily see why).

The consensus came to be that Reason was the capacity to comprehend the 'Supersensuous', i.e. abstract ideas named Concepts.

Animals cannot comprehend Concepts. Hence the distinction between Reason and 'Understanding' - the latter is knowledge that animals also possess in varying degrees: direct consciousness of the law of causality.

Interesting - causality isn't an abstract concept. It's conditioned by experience.

Kant claimed that ethics must be synthetic a priori

Makes sense - the Categorical Imperative can be grasped a priori in the synthetic world we are trapped in (bound by Kant's categories).

But this is a problem - the synthetic world may not contain anything material OR empirical, whether in the external world or within consciousness!

How can laws of human action emerge from this nothingness? We await Kant's answer.

Kant asserts that 'an action has no genuine moral worth, unless it be done simply as a matter of duty'.

Might seem retarded at surface value - how can this be true? Me giving up my seat for an old lady for example, done out of my own free will (no duty), is clearly moral.

But Kant's point is that only cold duty, without any pleasure (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) derived from the action, is moral.

Some fucking weird logic here but OK, whatever.

Schopy rejects Kant's assumption that there exist duties towards one's self.

Cuz he first posits that all duties are based either on i) right, ii) love.

Duties towards one's self based on right are impossible, cuz of the 'self-evident' principle that 'whatever is willed, no injury is done'. Whatever I do (to myself) is what I will, so ntg I do to myself is unjust.

Clear exposition of the Principle of Sufficient Reason here (altho not mentioned explicitly).

Kant assumes that purely moral laws exist. 'Laws' refer to both human institutions, and natural laws. Only a small portion of natural laws can be discerned a priori, however.

The PSR is a natural law! It can be understood a priori. It's not like the Categorical Imperative which is a quasi-necessity - it is complete.