To Jen and Michelle
Before I begin I'd like to dedicate this post to Jen Ming who is always reminding me to post and to Michelle "Doubting Thomas" Heayn who flat out believed that I would forget to post this week. Hopefully this will be a good one.
My goal here is to try and figure out what exactly about unversalizability does not make it a sufficient condition for a moral rule or set of moral rules to be valid. As I understand the lay of the land morality deals with oughts and I suppose I want to say that ought implies can. See during class and before I've been of the mind that ought does not necessarily imply can but now I'm not so sure. It seems that if morality says that you ought to do something that the something should be within one's power to do and also it should be something that everyone is able to do(or would be able to do). But I do not think that it is enought that the rule is applicable to everyone, I do think that it is necessary for it to be universal. I think perhaps the way it might work is that if a rule is moral then it is universal. Its Universalizability is not an antecedent but it might yet be a foundation of morality.
"You shall not kill." If this is infact a moral rule then it is one that is universal because of some other factor. Still this doesn't get away from the fact that this is a necessary quality or property of morality and it doesn't help show me that it isn't the only one. Perhaps some statement about the nature of the good is necessary such that:
1. Humans are creations of God in his own image.
2. God is Good.
3. Therefore that which is created in the image of God is also Good by virtue of being created by the Creator who is Good and being created in his image etc.
It is clear then that the above priniciples apply to all people. There is a clear statement of the Good so then one can infer the following maxim:
4. We should not kill other humans.
It seems that if each of us ought to not kill and it also seems the case that we are all infact able to not kill. But this is a test of universality and I'm still not sure how to separate it out from the nature of morality.
My goal here is to try and figure out what exactly about unversalizability does not make it a sufficient condition for a moral rule or set of moral rules to be valid. As I understand the lay of the land morality deals with oughts and I suppose I want to say that ought implies can. See during class and before I've been of the mind that ought does not necessarily imply can but now I'm not so sure. It seems that if morality says that you ought to do something that the something should be within one's power to do and also it should be something that everyone is able to do(or would be able to do). But I do not think that it is enought that the rule is applicable to everyone, I do think that it is necessary for it to be universal. I think perhaps the way it might work is that if a rule is moral then it is universal. Its Universalizability is not an antecedent but it might yet be a foundation of morality.
"You shall not kill." If this is infact a moral rule then it is one that is universal because of some other factor. Still this doesn't get away from the fact that this is a necessary quality or property of morality and it doesn't help show me that it isn't the only one. Perhaps some statement about the nature of the good is necessary such that:
1. Humans are creations of God in his own image.
2. God is Good.
3. Therefore that which is created in the image of God is also Good by virtue of being created by the Creator who is Good and being created in his image etc.
It is clear then that the above priniciples apply to all people. There is a clear statement of the Good so then one can infer the following maxim:
4. We should not kill other humans.
It seems that if each of us ought to not kill and it also seems the case that we are all infact able to not kill. But this is a test of universality and I'm still not sure how to separate it out from the nature of morality.
posted by Oakwise at
10:35 PM
2 Comments:
!!! i need to post too!
:o)
By
Jen Ming, at 11:20 PM
Now my actual comment --
I enjoyed another version of morality, that which I believe to be Kant’s. He seems to say that the rules morality comes up with in case A involving person 1, should apply to every person that finds themselves in a situation exactly like case A. This taken far, could mean that seemingly there are no universal rules in a way – one could say that no two people are ever in the same circumstances because no two people have been through exactly the same things in the past and past circumstances and experiences influence the current circumstances, given that mental states are a part of circumstances. If we take this idea in a lighter sense we can take it as though Kant is saying that if Bill needs to decide whether to chop up Chuck to save five and Lucy needs to decide whether to chop up Nancy to save five, then both of them (all things being equal) should apply the same universal rules to the situation. Both of them are deciding whether to chop someone up to save five other people, and both of them are of loosely similar character, and Chuck and Nancy are of equal innocence. It seems safe to say that these cases are similar enough in which an agent can apply one overall rule. I am not fully sure of the plausibility and the overall universal-ness of the concept, but it seems to be a good idea to me. I just don’t know enough about it yet.
On another point you had, that of ought implies can. It would seem that morality should not be allowed to ask of an agent something that the agent is not capable of, all things being equal. Does what you are saying here imply that if all things are not equal morality might seemingly be asking you to do something that you are not capable of? Or do you think that if things are not all equal you ought not to do it, that morality will not ask you to perform a task? I am curious about this one.
By
Jen Ming, at 1:02 AM
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