Why Kant Was Wrong About Beneficence: I don't need your help.

Lately, my mind has been reeling.

I seem to be suffering from a desire to do too many things at once. It is exhilarating- and a tad frustrating.
In the last two days I have gotten halfway through Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It (in case you're wondering: you do). I have gotten through the first part of, Stumbling on Happiness, a book dealing with the psychology of that elusive state which we all pursue- thus far, it is delightfully written. I have worked on crafting poetry. I have watched a live debate on the subject of capitalism. I have been pondering the ethics of being a rational, omnivorous creature, and questioning what it means to live out my values. I have watched TED talks on architecture, gratitude, "anonymous extraordinaries," and a host of other interesting and inspirational subjects. I have loaded my bedside table with more philosophy books, Russell's Principles of Mathematics (a perhaps foolish ambition), an introduction to game theory, and I become increasingly persuaded that I need  to investigate economics. It seems like every half hour I decide that I really, really want to learn about or think about something new and exciting- or pursue an idea to greater depth.
...What will I do with five weeks at home? I don't have enough time to think about half the things I want to think about!

Unsurprisingly, I suspect I lose a great deal of time fretting over the dilemma, rather than simply sitting down and actually doing some good thinking and reading. This can be a problem, but there's hope.

Fortunately, in the last half hour or so I managed to capture the latest intellectual whim "on paper"(actually, in a word document, but same thing, right?).

See, I was slowly eating teaspoons of peanut butter out of the peanut butter jar (a delicious but overall unwise idea). I believe I had just been mentally protesting the impossibility of fitting ten different subject into my next two college terms when I got sucked into renewed contemplation of the Kant paper I wrote for my ethics class. Whilst savoring the sweet peanut buttery-ness I returned to one of problems that kept bugging me. Is it, or is it not, plausible to say that an agent will necessarily require the assistance of others to achieve his end? Kant presumably believed that this made sense, but I went on to question that assumption. I began to wonder... what exactly does it mean to absolutely require the help of others?

The best I could come up with is being bitten by a poisonous snake and requiring someone else to fetch the antidote to save you. In that case, I willingly concede that self-help is not exactly an option.

But excluding cases of physical (or mental- but that is a big problem indeed!) debilitation... how much sense does it make to posit that, on the basis of self-interest, a rational agent cannot will the universalization of the maxim to neither help nor hurt others, because there exists a case in which the agent will require the help of others to obtain (one of) his end(s)?

I should perhaps clarify. It's more or less obvious what it means to not hurt others. What it means to help others is perhaps not so clear. I'm talking about "selfless charity"- assistance disconnected from any notion of rational self interest.

Let us envision a world where you are forced to solve your own problems. As humans, we are extraordinarily talented, capable creatures; we use our intellect to find creative solutions. Given this capacity, and given a free society- that is, a society where people are politically free (free from compulsion, free from abuse, free from violence), a society where people neither hurt nor help you... Given these things, it seems reasonable that when you find yourself in a strait... you are free to find your own solution. And you do so- without need of the help of others.

Imagine you're in a world where no one will offer you charity… You find yourself under stress. You find yourself in need of a solution to a major problem. What do you do?

 Well, here's something you don't do. You don't sit on a street corner and pout. That will get you nowhere.

So what do you do? 

Well, what can you do? Call upon those prodigious powers of intellect! 

You start to think. Hard. You figure out what tools you possess to get around the problem. You find a solution, and you get around your problem. 

Do I expect someone to help me by giving me a job I don't deserve? No. If I'm in need of employment, I start trying to think what jobs I can perform- moreover, what jobs I can perform well. What do I have of value that I can offer to someone?

 Do I expect someone to hand me a check in the belief that I can offer them nothing in return? No! No one invests in something they believe to be worthless. That is irrational, and I don't expect others, or myself, to be irrational.

To return to the question then...What sort of help would I, or could I, expect from others?

Certainly, I would expect people to treat me with respect- but that's not a question of charity. That's a part of freedom- respecting the rights of individuals.

I would expect others to deal with me in a mutual exchange of value- I would expect people to behave rationally, in a manner conducive to their rational self-interest.

If someone hands me a check, I expect it is because they believe I can offer them something valuable in return. And I accept their check because I believe it is fair compensation for what I provide them. Value for value. When dealing with others, I don't expect them to waste time or money on something that they believe to be worthless. That, fundamentally, makes no sense! 

I don't expect senseless, selfless charity.

So, again, does it even make sense to conceive of a world where people neither help nor hurt one another, where people leave each other to act freely, where people respect the rights of others… does it make any sense to say that in such a world, when you find yourself having a problem, the only thing you can do is rely on others solve your problems for you?

I would argue that, no. It doesn't.

And in case you were wondering- yes, I'm a capitalist.

Feel free to take issue with me on this. If you don't wish to go through the hassle of putting yourself in a position where you can leave a comment, address questions or comments to martina@carleton.edu

And look forward to more thoughts on Objectivism, Kantianism, or whatever else strikes my intellectual fancy!

Ugh... why should I be moral?

Why bother with morality?
It's much easier to not care about whether it is right or wrong to do something, isn't it? So why care?

I have just finished reading two selections on this subject for my ethics class.
The first, a portion of Plato's Republic, "The Immoralist's Challenge." The second, Philippa Foot's "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives."
They raise some interesting questions.

In "The Immoralist's Challenge," Socrates is challenged to explain why justice is good in itself. Justice, in this dialogue, is portrayed as a painful duty performed for the sake of the social rewards correlated with acting "justly." The problem is, if justice is good because of the reputation and power with which the just are rewarded, then this creates a movement to present a facade of justice. You can have your cake and eat it, too- that is to say, you may relish the joys of performing injustice upon others AND present yourself as a paragon of goodness to be rewarded with praise and social status. Forget behaving justly- no one likes that anyway. You only pretend to be a good person so that others treat you well.
Mind you, Glaucon (the challenger who presents this model of justice) does not actually buy that this is the extent of justice. Rather, he entreats Socrates to persuade him that this sad, corrupted notion of justice is not the true nature of justice. Glaucon wishes to rank justice as one of those goods which is desired not simply for the benefits associated with it, but also- essentially- for its own sake, but he needs reason to do so.

To my great discomfort, the selection ended abruptly. Glaucon entreats Socrates to correct him, to restore his faith in justice- and end.

What??
No answers? No restoration of faith?
Are notions of justice really naught but convenient illusions used to hold together precarious social bonds?
Plato, Socrates, help!

It was a bit disconcerting, really.
But it presents an excellent question. Why care about justice? Why is justice good for one?
Why aim to be just?
The point of the dialogue is, it has to be about justice itself. It has to be something about participating in justice that makes justice desirable. But what is it?

With these questions spinning around my head, I turned to the Philippa Foot reading (which in itself is a discussion of Kant's moral framework).
So... Kant. According to him, we have hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives (...what? I know. Bear with me.) Hypothetical imperatives are actions that must be done in order to achieve some end.
You want an "A" on that test? Then you should study. You want to get somewhere at 10:00? Then you should leave at 9:30.
In order to achieve your goal or fulfill your desire, you should perform an action or set of actions. Those are your hypothetical imperatives.

Then you have your categorical imperatives. These take "should" or "ought" to the next level, if you will. Categorical imperatives are actions that are "objectively necessary." They are ends in themselves.

Traditionally, moral judgments are classified under the categorical imperative category.
"You ought not kill."
BAM! That's it. Morally binding, unconditionally necessary.

But Foot wants to argue that there's something strange about relying on the magical power of "ought." What supports this reasoning? Essentially, categorical imperatives have a fundamentally duty-driven force behind them. They seem to say, this is your duty. Don't fight or argue, just do it. You have to.

To underline the problem, she points to etiquette. Even if someone doesn't care about etiquette, the rules still technically apply. If you're at some dinner party and flout all the rules, people will still say you should do otherwise, regardless of whether you actually care about it or not. That is to say, etiquette behaves like a categorical imperative, in the sense that it's not about "I want to accomplish this, so I should do this." Etiquette applies regardless of your desires. But... what if you just don't care?
This seems to put categorical imperatives under suspicion as magical forces of obligation. It's not enough to say someone ought to do something. The force of that statement is in their believing this to be true. If they don't care, then you have a problem.

So Foot suggests making the scary transition from classifying moral judgments as magical categorical imperatives, and instead thinking about them hypothetically.
Why perform acts of charity? Because I can empathize with those individuals and have an interest in seeing them happy.
That is to say, let go of the illusion that saying someone "ought to" do something holds genuine power. It is frightening to admit it, but that's not true. We must chose to care about morality. We give morality its power.

Foot's idea, on one hand, is frightening. But it is also wonderfully idealistic in its realism.

Essentially, Foot's ideas lend themselves to the following depiction. (Admittedly, it may be my relentless idealism seeping in. But I will maintain that it fits into her view.)

Morality is about a system of values. Morality relies upon a certain vision of hope... a yearning for truth, love, liberty, and justice. Moral individuals are those capable of envisioning the beauty of bringing those values to life, and of working to bring that beauty into realization.

Glaucon asks why bother with justice.
Bother with justice because it allows your life to cohere and deepen.
It allows you to create meaning. It allows you to look upon yourself with respect, to give and to receive love, to become a part of something genuine and beautiful.

So, that's why.