What does Kant mean by "man is an end, not a means"? Does doing good promote our morality? Should the state apologize for its historical mistakes?
This issue of "I Have a Problem with You" shares with you Professor Michael Sandel's book Justice: What to Do Is Good? 》。 From 1980 onwards, Sandel began teaching harvard undergraduates the general studies course "Justice." To date, more than 15,000 students have taken the course, making it one of the highest student attendances in Harvard history.
The "Justice" course was the first harvard course to be freely available online and on television, and it was watched by tens of millions of viewers around the world. Professor Sandel was named "The Most Influential Foreigner of the Year 2011" by China NewsWeek.
The sharer, Stamp Editor Seed Bon, asked the book 7 questions and found answers to those 7 questions.
#01
What does Kant mean by "man is an end, not a means"?
Answer: To understand Kant's moral philosophy, we must first understand what freedom is in Kant's philosophy. Kant believed that when we pursue pleasure or avoid suffering like animals, we do not act truly freely, but as slaves to desires and desires. Why? For whenever we are pursuing the satisfaction of our desires, then everything we do is for some purpose that is external to us. We fill our hunger in this way, we quench our thirst in that way.
Sandel gives an example to illustrate Kant's meaning.
A few years ago, Sprite had an advertising slogan: "Obey your thirst." Sprite's ad (unintentionally, of course) contains a Kantian insight. When I pick up a can of Sprite (or Pepsi or Coca-Cola), I'm acting out of obedience rather than freedom. I was just obeying my thirst.
People often argue about the role of nature and nurturing in behavioral formation, whether the desire for Sprite (or other sugary drinks) is intrinsically embedded in genes, or stimulated by advertising. For Kant, this argument actually strayed from the point. As long as my actions are biologically determined, or regulated by sociality, it is not true freedom. According to Kant, to act freely is to act self-disciplinedly, and to act self-discipline is to act according to the laws I have set for myself—not to obey the instructions of nature or social tradition.
One way to understand what Kant called "acting autonomously" is to compare freedom of will to its opposite. Kant invented a word to express this contrast—heteronomy. When I act according to His law, I act according to the prescriptiveness given outside of me. For example: when you drop a billiard ball, it falls to the ground; when it falls, it does not move freely, and its actions are governed by the laws of nature, in this case, the gravitational pull of the earth.
From this, we can further consider:
It's three o'clock in the morning and your college roommate is asking you why you don't sleep late at night, but instead ponder the moral dilemmas associated with the runaway tram. (Note: The Tram Conundrum, a famous experiment in ethical thought)
"To write a good paper for an ethics class." You answered.
"But why write a good paper?" Your roommate asked.
"To get a good result."
"But why care about grades?"
"To get a job in an investment bank."
"But why get a job in an investment bank?"
"To be a hedge fund manager one day."
"But why become a hedge fund manager?"
"To make a lot of money."
"But why make a lot of money?"
"In order to be able to eat lobster regularly, I like to eat lobster. After all, I am a sentient creature. That's why I stayed up late thinking about the runaway tram! ”
This is an example of what Kant called "his law prescriptiveness"—doing something for something else, then for something else, and so on. When we act in other ways, we act for some purpose that is external to ourselves, and we are instruments of the various ends we seek, not the setters of the ends.
Kant's conception of freedom of will is diametrically opposed to this. When we act autonomously—that is, according to the laws we have set for ourselves—we do something for the sake of the thing itself, it is the end in itself. We are no longer those tools that are external to our given various purposes. The ability to "act with self-discipline" gives the human person a special dignity, which marks the distinction between man and thing.
#02
Is it moral goodness that causes us to do good, or does doing good work promote our morality?
A: On this subject, Sandel introduced the views of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Aristotle said, "Moral virtue arises from habits." "It's something we learn through action." We acquire these virtues first and foremost by applying them, and the same applies to art. ”
In this respect, being virtuous is like learning to play the flute. No one can learn how to play an instrument by reading a book or listening to a lecture, you have to practice. It's useful to listen to high-level musicians and hear how they play. However, you can't become a violinist without playing the violin. The same is true of moral virtue: "We become righteous people by right deeds, we become controlled people by temperate actions, and we become brave people by doing brave deeds." ”
This is very similar to other behaviors and skills, such as cooking. There are a lot of cooking books published in the market, but no one can become a good chef just by reading these cookbooks, and you have to spend a lot of time practicing cooking. Telling jokes is another example. You can't be a comedian by reading joke books and collecting funny stories, nor can you be a comedian just by learning the principles of comedy. You'll have to practice — practice rhythm, time, posture, and intonation— while also watching Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Eddie Murphy, and Robin Williams perform.
If moral virtue is something that we learn from our actions, then we have to develop legitimate habits first and for some reason. For Aristotle, this was the primary purpose of the law—to cultivate habits that formed good qualities. "Legislators make good citizens by developing habits among citizens, and that is the hope of every legislator. Laws that have no effect on this hope do not achieve their goals, and it is in this respect that a good constitution distinguishes itself from a bad one. "Moral education is not about promoting rules, but about cultivating habits and shaping qualities." Whether or not we develop this or that habit from a young age is not a trivial difference, but a very important difference, or a total difference. ”
Aristotle's emphasis on habit does not mean that he considered moral virtue to be a mechanical act. Habits are the first step in moral education, and if all goes well, then habits will eventually work, and we will understand the meaning of habits. Etiquette columnist Judith Martin once complained that people had lost the habit of writing thank-you notes. She noticed that people now think that feeling is better than etiquette, and as long as you feel grateful, then there is no need to stick to these etiquettes. Martin objected: "On the contrary, I think we can expect more assurance that practicing proper behavior will ultimately encourage a sense of virtue." If you write enough thank-you notes, you may end up feeling grateful. ”
This is Aristotle's view of moral virtue. Focusing on virtuous behavior helps us to acquire the disposition to act according to virtue.
#03
Why are we against surrogacy?
A: There may be many reasons why we oppose surrogacy, and Sandel points out an angle in the book: There are some things that we shouldn't buy with money, including the fertility of babies and women.
What's wrong with buying and selling these things? The most convincing answer to this is that to treat babies and pregnancies as commodities is to belittle them without proper respect for them.
Lurking behind this answer is a profound idea: the way we properly respect commodities and social behaviors doesn't just depend on us. Specific patterns of respect apply to specific goods and behaviors. In the case of commodities, such as cars and toasters, the most appropriate way to respect them is to use them, or to manufacture and sell them for profit. But if we think of everything as a commodity, we would be wrong. For example, it is wrong to think of humans as commodities—as items that can be bought and sold. This is because humans are worthy of respect, not objects of use. Respect and use are two different modes of emphasis.
Contemporary moral philosopher Elizabeth Anderson applies this argument to the debate about surrogacy. In her view, surrogacy contracts belittled children and women's labour as commodities. By "debasement", she means "treating something according to a lower, rather than a mode of evaluation appropriate to it." We do not evaluate things 'more' or 'less', but treat things in some qualitatively higher or lower way. To love or respect a person is to treat him in a higher way than when he is taken advantage of... Commercial surrogacy demeans children because it treats children as commodities. "It uses them as a tool to make money, rather than cherishing them as people worth loving and caring for."
Anderson argues that commercial surrogacy degrades women by treating their bodies as factories and paying them to disassociate themselves from the children they have. It replaces the "parent-child rules that usually govern the conception of children" with the various economic norms that govern ordinary production. Anderson writes that by asking the surrogate mother to "suppress the maternal love she feels for this child," the surrogacy contract "transforms a woman's labor into an alienated labor."
In a surrogacy contract, (the mother) agrees not to form or attempt to form a mother-child relationship with her offspring. Her labor was alienated because she had to abandon its purpose, which was rightly advanced by the social act of pregnancy—an emotional bond with her children.
Anderson's central argument is that there are differences between objects, so it is wrong to treat all objects in the same way—as tools for making money or as objects to be used. If this view is correct, then it explains why there are some things that money can't buy.
#04
What do you think of lies and misleading truths?
A: A naked lie and a misleading truth may reach the same result, so is there a difference between them? Kant will tell you that there is a big difference.
In the years leading up to the controversy with Gunsdown, Kant found himself in some trouble with King Friedrich Wilhelm II. The king and his prosecutors considered Kant's writings on religion to belittle Christianity and demanded that he promise not to give any further opinion on the subject. Kant responded with a carefully worded statement: "As a faithful subject of His Majesty, I will completely cease all public speech and thesis writing in relation to religion." ”
When Kant made this statement, he knew that the king would not live long. A few years after the king's death, Kant considered himself free from this promise, which was bound only to him "as a faithful subject of His Majesty." Kant later explained that he chose the wording "so carefully that I would not be deprived of my rights forever ... But only when His Majesty is alive." With the help of this clever wording, this Prussian model of morality succeeded in misleading the prosecutors without lying to them.
Sandel analyzes Kant's theory, writing:
There is a morally relevant difference between a lie and a misleading truth.
But what would be the difference? The intent in both cases can be said to be the same. Am I lying to the murderer at the door, or am I offering him a witty wording, all my intentions are meant to mislead him into thinking that my friend is not hiding in my house. And, according to Kant's theory of morality, it is intent or motivation that matters.
I think the difference here is: a well-crafted wording that somehow honors the obligation to tell the truth, while a blunt lie is not. If any man goes out of his way to make up a misleading but technically true statement—and a simple lie can be expressed in the same way—then, no matter how flashy he may be, he respects the moral law.
A misleading truth involves two motives, not one. If I were just lying to the murderer, I was doing it for a motive—to protect my friends from harm. If I tell a murderer that I recently saw my friend at the grocery store, I do so for two motives — to protect my friend while upholding the obligation to tell the truth. In both cases, I am pursuing the same laudable purpose, which is to protect my friends. And only in the second case do I pursue this aim in a way consistent with the motive of obligation.
#05
Is the contract fair?
We sometimes assume that when two people make a deal, the terms of their agreement must be fair. In other words, we assume that contracts justify the various terms that arise from them. However, this is not the case – at least not on their own. Actual contracts are not self-contained moral tools. The fact that you and I make a deal doesn't make the deal fair.
The moral binding force of contracts comes from two different ideas: freedom of will and reciprocity. However, most actual contracts lack these ideas. If I were dealing with someone with a higher bargaining position, my consent might not be entirely free, but forced or, in extreme cases, forced. If I negotiate with someone who knows better what we are exchanging, the transaction may not be mutually profitable; in extreme cases, I may have been deceived or deceived.
In real life, people's situations are very different, which means that different trading forces and knowledge are always possible. And as long as this is true, the fait accompli of the agreement itself does not guarantee the fairness of the agreement. That's why in practice contracts are not self-contained moral instruments, and we can always legitimately question: "Is the agreement they reach fair?" ”
In fact, for a contract to be truly fair, the conditions need to be set very harshly. The American political philosopher John Rawls proposed a theory of the "curtain of ignorance":
Suppose we come together to choose various principles, and we do not know where we will be in society. Suppose we choose behind a "veil of ignorance" that will temporarily leave us with no information about who we are. We don't know our class or gender, race or ethnicity, political views or religious beliefs; we don't know our strengths and weaknesses— whether we are healthy or sickly, whether we have received higher education or dropped out of secondary school, whether we were born into a complete and harmonious family or into a broken family. Without knowing these things, then we will actually choose from a state of primordial equality. Since no one will have a higher bargaining position, then the principles to which we agree will be just.
Sandel writes:
Let's imagine an agreement between people who have equal, not unequal, power and knowledge: they are in the same situation, not different. At the same time, imagine that the object of this contract is not the laying of pipes or other ordinary transactions, but the principles that govern our lives and distribute the rights and duties we have as citizens. Such a contract among such parties can be without oppression, deception or other unfair shortcomings. Its provisions, by virtue of consent itself, are necessarily just, whatever they may be.
If you can imagine such a contract, then you understand Rawls's idea of a hypothetical contract in the original state of equality. The Veil of Ignorance guarantees the rights and intellectual equality required by the Primordial State. The Veil of Ignorance guarantees that no one can (even inadvertently) take advantage of a better trading position by ensuring that no one knows his place in society, his strengths or weaknesses, his values or purposes.
If special knowledge is allowed, then the result is biased by arbitrary contingencies ... If the original state is meant to produce a just contract, then the parties to the contract must be in an equal position and treated equally as moral beings. The arbitrariness of this society must be corrected by regulating the circumstances of the original contractual state.
Ironically, the hypothetical contract behind the veil of ignorance is not a feeble form of the contract of reality, and is therefore morally weak; it is a pure form of the contract of reality and therefore more morally powerful.
#06
In the United States, there was a change from compulsory military service to volunteer military service, and it seems that volunteer military service respects the free choice of the individual. Is this really the case?
A: Volunteer military service seems fair, but when you look deeply, this is not the case. Sandel leads us to think: Is volunteer military service really the result of people's free choice?
If we do not have a deep understanding of the main social context, then we cannot judge whether the system of voluntary military service is justified: whether equality of opportunity in this society is justified. Is it that some people have few other options? Does everyone have access to a college education? Or for some people, the only way to go to college is to join the military?
From the point of view of market reasoning, the volunteer military service system is attractive because it avoids the compulsive nature of conscription. It makes military service dependent on the will of the people. However, some people who volunteer for military service may be as reluctant to do so as those who have evaded military service. If poverty and economic hardship are widespread, the option of enlistment may simply reflect a lack of options.
According to this rebuttal, volunteers may not be as voluntary as they seem. In fact, it may involve an ingredient in forcing. If some people in society have no other good options, then those who choose to enlist are effectively forced into the military by economic needs. In this case, the difference between conscription and voluntary military service is not that one is coercive and the other is free; on the contrary, each adopts a different form of coercion — in the first case a legal compulsion and in the second case a pressure on economic needs. Only when people can choose decent work within a reasonable range can we say that their choice to join the army for the sake of pay reflects their preference, not the limitedness of choice.
The class makeup of the U.S. volunteer corps is somewhat confirmed by the idea that young people in low- to middle-income (middle-income households earn $30,850 to $57,836 a year) disproportionately appear among the recruits in active duty. The fewest of these are the poorest 10 percent (many of whom do not have the necessary education and skills) and the richest 20 percent (who come from places with household incomes above $66,329). In recent years, more than 25 percent of new recruits in the military have not had a formal high school diploma. 46 per cent of the civilian population has some sort of university education, but only 6.5 per cent of active-duty military personnel aged 18 to 24 have attended a university.
#07
Should the state apologize for its historical mistakes?
A: Sandel pointed out that a sense of belonging to the country goes hand in hand with responsibility. If a person has a high degree of "identification" with his country, then he should not turn a blind eye to the mistakes of the country's history.
Of course, not everyone agrees that we have special responsibilities to our families, colleagues and compatriots. Some argue that the so-called obligation of solidarity is in fact nothing more than an example of collective selfishness and a favoritism toward one's own people. This criticism acknowledges that we generally care more about our families, friends, and co-workers than we care about others. Sandel mentions in his book that these people feel that this tendency to care more about their relatives, friends, colleagues, and compatriots should be overcome, and that people should move away from this narrow-minded collectivism and patriotism and care for all people equally. In response, Sandor retorted:
No, not necessarily. The obligations of unity and membership are both outward and inward. I may have certain special obligations to my fellow citizens, some of which derive from the unique communities in which I live; but I may have other obligations to others—my community has a moral and historical burden on these people, as in relations between Germans and Jews, white Americans and African-Americans. Collective apologies and reparations for historical injustices are a good illustration of the way in which unity can generate moral responsibilities for the community, not for myself. Correcting my country's past mistakes is a way of making sure I am loyal to it.
Sometimes, solidarity can give us special reasons to criticize the actions of our own people or our governments. Patriotism can produce different opinions. Let's take two different reasons for opposing and protesting against the Vietnam War as an example. One reason is that this war is unjust; the other is that it is not worth fighting and conflicts with our conception of being a people. The first reason can be used by anyone who opposes the war, regardless of where they reside, while the second reason can only be felt and expressed by the citizens of the country responsible for the war. A Swede might oppose the Vietnam War and think it was unjust, but only Americans would be ashamed of it.
Moral emotions such as pride and shame presuppose a shared identity. Americans traveling abroad are embarrassed when they see the rude behavior of American travelers, even if they don't know them personally. Non-Americans may think this behavior is undignified, but they are not embarrassed by it.
The ability to be proud and ashamed of the actions of family members and fellow citizens is closely linked to the ability to take responsibility collectively. Both of these abilities require us to see ourselves as situational selves—subject to moral bonds that we have no choice in, and implicit in the narratives that shape our identity as moral subjects.
Given the close link between the ethics of pride and shame and the ethics of collective responsibility, we are puzzled to find that political conservatives (such as Henry Hyde, John Howard, and others mentioned earlier) oppose collective apologies on individualistic grounds. If we insist that we, as individuals, are solely responsible for the choices and actions we make, it is difficult for us to be proud of our country's history and traditions. Anyone everywhere will admire the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Speeches, the heroes who lay dormant in Arlington National Cemetery, and so on. But patriotic pride requires a sense of belonging to a community that continues through time.
Along with a sense of belonging comes responsibility. If you're not willing to take on any responsibility for bringing your country's story to the present day, and the kinds of moral burdens that might accompany that story, then you can't really be proud of your country and its history.
Column host 丨 Pang Ye
Poster 丨VESKATER
Responsible Editor丨 Melon &VV
Typesetting editor 丨ershui
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