Promise-Keeping

Maybe I’m reading the prompt wrong but isn’t the keeping of promises an obligation rather than a right? A right is something which insulates and protects an individual from the greater whole, while an obligation is a compromise of free-will within the community such that the societal structure may operate more efficiently, and as a byproduct, the individual will also benefit. The obligation of promise-keeping (including those promises which are subconscious) allows for not only larger and greater communities, but also the emergence of an economy. As technology advances and the division of labor becomes more pronounced, the obligation of promise-keeping becomes even more important.

It is therefore not our right to keep our promises but an obligation. However, it logically follows that the promisee has the right to seek retribution on a promiser who did not hold his/her end of the bargain. This retribution may not be physical but would mostly be social, in that the false promiser would gain a reputation for his dishonestly and be either exiled or subsumed back into the whole through conformity of societal norms.

I don’t think mankind ever made a “choice” to keep its promises, but it is rather inherent and requisite within our family dynamics, and is extended to the rest of the tribe who would be generally thought of as an extended family.

Mill 10/24

"Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof" (184)

I wholeheartedly agree with Mill! Questions of morality are impossible to answer with the typical reference to either science or logic, we must instead rely on anthropological and sociological observations and tendencies, which Mill alludes to:

"Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof." (184)

What Mill is saying is that we can only make moral conclusions based on a set of basic assumptions, which is how he goes about disproving earlier moralists. While this is fine in theory, you are making another assumption about your assumptions, namely that your assumptions are correct and everyone else is wrong.

Prep for Mill

If a particular action or an object produces pleasure while another produces pain, and the former is considered good and the latter bad, we should structure our lives such that we aim to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the greatest amount of people in the community. Of course, too much of a good thing can cause pain, such as excessive eating, so excess must be necessarily avoided. The question is this: should the individual maintain a minimalist lifestyle so that he/she may donate to the greater pleasure of society? Or should the ascetic be shunned in favor of he who concentrates his most productive activities on himself and his closest friends? The answer is most obviously "somewhere in the middle", but that "somewhere" will be different for each individual, but those who fall at the ends of the continuum are significantly less helpful to the community that those closer to the middle.

Onora/Kant

Kantianism is differentiated from rights theory in that rights theory grants the same rights as adults, in the same form. Children obviously cannot make the informed decisions that an adult can (or at least should be able to), so the adults around them must (are obligated to) help them make these decisions. This obligation towards children is regarded as fundamental for O'Neill, and the rights of the child logically follow from this obligation, whereas the rights theorists claim that children have these rights in virtue of their humanity.

For me, Kantianism is appealling because it involves the fewest assumptions; the obligations logically follow from the recognized fact that children cannot survive without the support, guidance, and interaction with adults, whereas saying that humans automatically have certain rights is a pure assumption (however attractive it may be).

My main objection to O'Neill is- How may one determine when one is no longer obligated toward the children? Or, otherwise phrased, how may we know when a child has "grown up"? There are certainly people that try to make decisions for their (or someone else's) children when the child is more than capable of making that decision, for whatever reason.

Kant 10/15

My main question for Kant can actually be split into two; 1) why MUST we assume the existence of a god, and can we know his/her/its characteristics? And 2) if this assumption were tossed out, how would your system change?

If the God-assumption were abandoned, the conclusions he drew from the freedom principle would be quite different; his position on suicide would be nullified to some extent (some points could still be debated), and “defiling oneself by lust” would become a matter of pure opinion.

Also, how would the claim that the only true knowledge is a priori knowledge be justified? This is something I just can’t see…

Currently writing a paper...

I finished the reading for tonight but for the sake of my sanity I will not be posting my response until tomorrow night. I am finishing a paper for another class at the moment and expect it to take the rest of the night.

Kant 10/13

What immediately struck me most was Kant’s views on sexuality. He is of the opinion that marriage is not and cannot be strictly for procreation, because the marriage would be necessarily dissolved once procreation was no longer possible. Marriage is instead for “sexual enjoyment”, and offspring is just one possible end result. For his time, this was a pretty racy idea!

Something seems “off” about his idea of ownership, specifically the definition, but I can’t put my finger on it. However, I agree with most, if not all, of the conclusions he draws, though the specifics of “Private Right” seem long-winded and superfluous.

“Public Right” on the other hand was very interesting; I liked his idea that each branch of government must depend on another, even though it would not be difficult for such a state to fall into a gear-grinding bureaucracy. I am not sure whether or not he is serious about his concept of ruler, so I won’t comment on that until I learn more.

Kant 10/10

“moral laws… hold as laws only as they can be seen to have an a priori basis and to be necessary…” (pg 9)

This seems to make things very subjective. I will have to re-examine this when I have more time, unless someone could explain to me how this could produce sound arguments?

“Freedom, insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity.” (pg 30).

Yes!!!!! And this is the right from which all others are implicated! On this point I agree one-hundred percent with Kant, even though we draw different conclusions from this. Unfortunately, there are problems with this right, and exceptions to be made. At this point, I do not know how to account for these exceptions, so I will admit my ignorance for the time being.

“Natural perfection is the cultivation of any capacities whatever for ends set forth by reason. That this is a duty and so in itself an end, and that the cultivation of our capacities, even without regard for the advantage it affords us, is based on an unconditional (moral) imperative rather than a conditional (pragmatic) one…” (6:392a)

I would use the word “perfection” with caution. Perfection, like infinity, does not actually exist concretely, but rather abstractly; so while we may aim “towards” it, we cannot aim “at” it, and any attempts to do so will end in frustration and undue stress.

“Strength of any kind can be recognized only by the obstacles it can overcome…” (pg 156)

Hmm… I like this quote. It is officially going on my facebook!

Enquiry... sect 1-4

From what I have seen, Enquiry… truly is a condensed version of his Treatise…, the arguments and logic is nearly the same, yet not quite so long-winded. He still maintains that some virtues arise naturally while others artificially, that benevolence is generally regarded as the highest and most well-received of virtues, and that justice arises necessarily out of human interaction. I wish I could expand on this more but my knees are buckling under the weight of all the other work I am obliged to do!

Hume’s Enquiry… is valuable for contemporary readers because, well it’s timeless: it is not restricted by alien customs or political contexts; no knowledge of the context in which the book was written is needed to understand Hume’s arguments.

Sorry this post was so short, I feel like my responses are “watered-down”- normally I am very thorough in my assignments, but I have myself spread thin this semester.