Maverick Philosopher

Homo Homini Lupus: The Red Army Rape of German Women, Spring 1945

The best antidote to the leftist-progressivist fantasy that man is basically good is the study of history, including the history of leftist-progressivist atrocities.  Here is an excerpt from Antony Beevor's book on the fall of Berlin.  "They raped every German female from eight to 80."

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Capital Punishment and the Difference between Conservatives and Leftists

The difference springs to the eye by comparison of this morally sane piece by Peter Hitchens and this one by Hendrik Hertzberg.

Hendrik makes no mention of the crime, the victim, and her horrible death. Instead, typical leftist that he is, he invests his interest in the perceived underdog without any consideration of why the dirty dog is in his inferior position.  Hitchens puts the emphasis where it belongs.  Hendrik:

The classic justifications for the death penalty have not changed much over the centuries. There is retribution—an eye for an eye, a life for a life. There is deterrence—this is what awaits you if you transgress. And there is awe—a graphic demonstration of the ultimate power of the state.

No talk of justice, but a shabby suggestion that the principle that the punishment must fit the crime is to be interpreted as a narrow lex talionis injunction, as if the death penalty is in every case like the barbarity of gouging out the eye of the eye-gouger.

There is also something curious about leftists, who are totalitarians from the ground up, the top down, and from side to side, worrying about the ultimate power of the state.  These are same moral cretins who want to use the power of the state to force florists and caterers to violate their consciences.

Anyone who doesn't see the moral necessity of the death penalty in certain carefully circumscribed cases, anyone who thinks that it is always and everywhere and in principle immoral, is morally obtuse.

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Kant, Supererogation, and Imperfect Duties

Can Kant's ethical scheme  accommodate the supererogatory?

If obligatory actions are those that one is duty-bound to perform, a supererogatory action is one that is above and beyond the call of duty. Michael A. Monsoor's throwing himself on a live grenade to save his Navy SEAL buddies is a paradigmatic example. But in a wide sense, a supererogatory act is any act, however trifling, that is in excess of what is morally required, any act that is morally good but the nonperformance of which is not morally bad.

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One idea worth exploring is that there is room for supererogatory acts in Kant's scheme under the rubric of imperfect duties. Kant tells us that ". . . by a perfect duty I here understand a duty which permits no exception in the interest of inclination . . . ." (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AA 421, fn) A perfect duty can be either towards oneself or towards another. Kant gives the prohibition of suicide as a perfect duty to oneself and the prohibition of deceitful promises as a perfect duty towards others. These are proscriptions that admit of no exception, and I take it that perfect duties are perfect in that they are exceptionless: in no circumstance may one take one's own life, and in no circumstance may one make a deceitful promise. If so, then imperfect duties are prescriptions that admit of exceptions. This interpretation fits the examples Kant gives (423-424). There is the duty to oneself of cultivating one's talents, and the duty to to others of benevolent assistance. Both of these duties are prescriptions and both admit of exceptions. My general duty to cultivate my talents is not a duty to cultivate all my talents, or even any particular talent. And the duty of benevolent assistance cannot be a duty to assist everyone. Paul Guyer's reading is similar:

In the Groundwork, Kant's principle of morality gives rise to a fourfold classification of duties, resulting from the intersection of two divisions: between duties to oneself and to others, and between perfect and imperfect duties. Perfect duties are proscriptions of specific kinds of actions, and violating them is morally blameworthy; imperfect duties are prescriptions of general ends, and fulfilling them by means of performing appropriate particular actions is praiseworthy. The four classes of duty are thus: perfect duties to oneself, such as the prohibition of suicide; perfect duties to others, such as the prohibition of deceitful promises; imperfect duties to oneself, such as the prescription to cultivate one's talents; and imperfect duties to others, such as the prescription of benevolence (4: 422-3, 429-30 ). It is straightforward what a perfect duty prohibits one from doing; it requires judgment to determine when and how the general ends prescribed by imperfect duties should be realized through particular actions.

Note that Guyer states that the fulfilling of imperfect duties is praiseworthy. Now it is the supererogatory that we praise: it is inappropriate to praise people for doing what they are obligated to do. How morally absurd to praise a pater familias for paying the rent and putting food on the table! That is what he is supposed to do, what he morally must do. The failure to do such is blameworthy, but the performance is merely required, hence not praiseworthy. Since the fulfilling of imperfect duties is praiseworthy, it seems we can conclude that in Kant the class of supererogatory acts either is or is a proper subclass of the class of imperfect duties.

Further support for this interpretation comes at Grundlegung 429-430 where Kant speaks of "necessary or obligatory duties to others" and a "contingent (meritorious) duty to oneself." In English, 'obligatory duty' smacks of pleonasm, but that might not be the case for Kant's schuldige Pflicht. If duties divide into the obligatory (schuldigen) and the meritorious (verdienstlichen), then we can say that Kant accommodates supererogatory acts under the rubric of imperfect or meritorious duties.

There is more to it than this, of course, and there is a technical literature on this topic only a small amount of which I have read; but I think I can safely say two things: (i) a case can be made for Kant's being able to accommodate the supererogatory, and (ii) Kantians are more hospitable to the supererogatory than are utilitarians.

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The Discursive as Distraction

The search for the Real takes us outside ourselves. We may seek the Real in experiences, possessions, distant lands, or other people. These soon enough reveal themselves as distractions. But what about ideas and theories? Are they simply a more lofty sort of distraction? “Travelling is a fool’s paradise” said Emerson. Among lands certainly, but not among ideas?

If I move from objects of sense to objects of thought I am still moving among objects. To discourse, whether in words or in thoughts, is to be on the run and not at rest. But is not the Real to be found resting within, in one’s innermost subjectivity? Discourse dis-tracts, pulls apart, the interior unity.

Noli foras ire, said Augustine, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. “Do not wish to go outside, return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.”

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Why We are 'Obsessed' with Guns and Executions

Keith Burgess-Jackson explains in response to a moronic missive he found in the NYT:

To the Editor:

Dear America: Not that I expect to persuade you, but just so you know, most of the rest of the world regards your obsession with guns and executions as barbaric. Don’t say you weren’t told.

VINCE CALDERHEAD
Nairobi, Kenya, April 30, 2014

Note from KBJ: You mean the world that gave us (just off the top of my head, and in no particular order) the Inquisition, the Crusades, human chattel slavery, gladiatorial contests, human sacrifice, conquistadors, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedung, Robespierre, genocide, tribal warfare, the guillotine, the garrote, and the broadaxe? Sorry; we Americans put our murderers to death because, and only because, we value innocent human life. We are "obsessed" with guns because we are obsessed with individual liberty. It you don't like it here, please leave. If you're not here, please shut up and leave us alone.

Well said.  The willful stupidity and moral obtuseness of contemporary liberals is perhaps best demonstrated from their lunatic stands on capital punishment and gun control.

Here it is over a year since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Why is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev still alive?  We need a judicial fast track for terrorists.  Have we lost the will to defend our open way of life, our institutions and traditions? 

Related: Three Arguments Against Capital Punishment Demolished

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And the Award for Gun Salesman of the Year Goes to . . .

 

To the Editor:

Dear America: Not that I expect to persuade you, but just so you know, most of the rest of the world regards your obsession with guns and executions as barbaric. Don’t say you weren’t told.

VINCE CALDERHEAD
Nairobi, Kenya, April 30, 2014

Note from KBJ: You mean the world that gave us (just off the top of my head, and in no particular order) the Inquisition, the Crusades, human chattel slavery, gladiatorial contests, human sacrifice, conquistadors, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedung, Robespierre, genocide, tribal warfare, the guillotine, the garrote, and the broadaxe? Sorry; we Americans put our murderers to death because, and only because, we value innocent human life. We are "obsessed" with guns because we are obsessed with individual liberty. It you don't like it here, please leave. If you're not here, please shut up and leave us alone.

Well said.  The willful stupidity and moral obtuseness of contemporary liberals is perhaps best demonstrated from their lunatic stands on capital punishment and gun control.

Here it is over a year since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Why is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev still alive?  We need a judicial fast track for terrorists.  Have we lost the will to defend our open way of life, our institutions and traditions? 

Related: Three Arguments Against Capital Punishment Demolished

On Toleration: With a Little Help from Kolakowski