Notes � Hegel + Nietzsche vs Kant CI

Wholly universalisable duties are �perfect duties�, such as promise-keeping, are those that can be observed by each towards all others. There are also imperfect duties, such as helping others in need or developing one�s own talents, which cannot be observed towards all others, which Kant terms �duties of virtue�.

Kantian ethics are deontological (coming from the Greek �deon� meaning �one must�), insofar as the right is prior to the good, i.e. it�s not what ensues but the reason for or spirit of your action. Deontologically theories �are concerned with ethically required action, hence with principles, rules or norms, with obligations, prohibitions and permissions, and with justice and injustice, but not with virtues, good lives, moral ideals and personal relationships� (Routledge).

Reading � Kaufmann, �Nietzsche�

pp 146-147

�Kant�s Categorical Imperative would permit of the following hypothetical fomulation, without any injustice to Kant�s thought: do this, if you want to be rational!�. That is to say that Kant�s Categorical Imperative derived its imperative from an analysis of reason and rationality, and that this is where Kant�s philosophy might be said to fall down. Kant�s conception of reason is unempirical and non-naturalistic.

Nietzsche�s prescriptions are, in Kantian terms, hypothetical and do not involve any absolute obligation. One can be decadent if one so chose. �If a man does not want to be healthy, the most that can be said about him is that he is diseased to the marrow, or, in Nietzsche�s later terminology, decadent�.

It is not clear what sort of contradiction Kant adduces from the examples he considers against the Categorical Imperative, since there is no logical contradiction.

Kant�s notion of the �dignity� of the individual seems at odds with his idea that reason is �impersonal�

pp 322-324

The Eternal Recurrence should not be construed as essentially similar to the Categorical Imperative. It seems as though Nietzsche is almost proposing that we �act in such a manner that [you] could wish [your] act to recur eternally� (Kaufmann)

However, Kant was not trying to appeal to our psychological disposition. The Categorical Imperative was intended merely as a means of making explicit the contradictions inherent in the universal adoption of contradictory maxims. He was uninterested in our emotion reaction the their consequences. Indeed, Kant�s idea of the (moral) value of the act derived entirely from the act itself, or more specifically, the dutiful intention causing us to act. On the other hand, the Eternal Recurrence will affect our actions only insofar as we are we would wish to relive or avoid their them over and over eternally.

Secondly, Nietzsche was not primarily a �moral philosopher, or even an �immoralist', as he called himself, for he did not praise immoral deeds.

He was concerned with the artist, the philosopher and those who achieve self perfection (the new sainthood). Nietzsche was more worried about the state of being� of the whole man. Those who succeed and can rejoice in the Eternal Recurrence are so self-perfected, self-affirming . Does this mean they do or don�t have any thought of the consequences??? Well, Kaufmann thinks that the Eternal Recurrence is all about the state of man, rather than actions. He seems to conclude this on the basis of a confused determinism/fatalism (�They do not deliberate how they should act to avoid unpleasant consequences � knowing all the while that whatever they are about to do has already been done by them an infinite number of times in the past�.� Thus, the contrast between the Dionysian faith of Goethe with the philosophy of �Kant, the antipode of Goethe� (G IX 49).

Why did Nietzsche value the Eternal Recurrence so highly, above the rest of his philosophy. The answer is that the Eternal Recurrence provides a means for him to justify redeems his life. Nietzsche is looking towards �an overwhelming joy [such] that he no longer feels concerned about the �justification� of the world: he affirms it forward, backward and �in all eternity�. �Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it � but love it� (EH II 10). This feeling of joy� (�amor fati', love of fate)is his �formula for the greatness of a human being�. Power is still the standard of value � but this joy is the conscious feeling that is inextricably connected with a man�s possession of power�.

Reading � �Hegel�s ethics�, Allen Wood, in Cambridge Companion to Hegel (ed Beiser)

see �reading � Hegel, Cambridge companion�

Kant

The only good is a �good will�, that acts �from duty�, from �respect for reason�s moral law�. We have no way of knowing the divine will, except as what a perfectly good being would will. This presupposes an autonomous theory of the good will. The only way to reconcile moral obligation with freedom is so that by obeying the moral law if we are obeying our own true will.

Happiness is objectively valuable because it is the end set by a rational will, but this happiness is only conditional upon it being a good will.

Fichte

Wood argues that Hegel�s understanding of Kant was coloured by Fichte�s reworking, which emphasised the inter-subjective as part of the �I�s fulfilment of its practical striving.

Development of Hegel�s thought

Hegel started as a Kantian. Like Kant, he attacked ceremonial religion, advocating a harmonious naturalistic Hellenic �folk� religion over Kant�s austere, deistic moral religion (Wood). During his Frankfurt period (1797-1799), he attacks the (Kantian) moral stand-point as �self-alienated, pharasaical, a stand-point which can only blame and condemn but never convert its �ought� into an �is��.

He finds the moral standpoint �empty�, unable to produce determinate duties, but unlike Fichte, sees this endemic to the moral standpoint as such. During the Jena period, he contrasts Kantian and Fichtean �morality� (Moralit�/i>) with �ethical life� (Sittlichkeit). He ultimately tries to draw up on the �ethical life� of the Greeks to bridge the gap between reason and inclination, the abstract and a living society, and as a reaction to the formalism of modern individualist �morality�.

Finally, in The Philosophy of Right, he conceives of a tri-partite philosophy of objective spirit, consisting of �abstract right�, �morality� and �ethical life�. This integrates �morality� and �abstract right� more positively into a less paradigmatically Greek conception of �ethical life�.

The self-actualisation of freedom

A self-actualisation theory

Wood considers Hegel as working on the systematic self-actualisation of Geist�s freedom, in the specific form of the practical subject or free will. Hegel draws on the Aristotelian idea that ethics must be founded on a conception of the human good as the actualisation of human essence. But, as Kant emphasises, this good need not be happiness, or anything that our nature demands. Indeed, the human vocation is freedom itself, following Fichte�s identity of freedom with the activity of the self. It is thus neither deontological, nor teleological, but a self-actualisation theory.

Hegel�s system of the self breaks down into:

the �person�, a free volitional agent, capable of abstracting completely from desires and situation � �abstract right�

the individual as subject, a moral agent with its own agenda, as well as responsibility to others � �morality�

Neither of these can be actualised, except within a harmonious social system or ethical life.

Objective freedom

Objective freedom, rather than the subjective view of it considered above, is freedom made objective or actual. Genuine freedom consists in that activity which fully actualises reason. This is similar to the Kantian notion of autonomy, that has its source solely in the self-activity of the agent. However, Kant�s idea of such autonomous freedom includes freedom from the sensuous, and freedom from the external world. In contrast, Hegel is seeking a freedom that is rooted in embracing otherness, �being with oneself in an other�, and thus actualising freedom. This allows for freedom within rational self-actualising social institutions and empirical motives in a quite un-Kantian way.

abstract freedom � the spiritual self is with itself in external things, which are its property

morality � it is with itself in its own subjective willing and the external consequences

ethical life � it is with itself through social institutions that support it and provide community

Abstract right

Morality

Ethical freedom

Ethics and the free society

Reading � �Nietzsche�, Schacht

Index on Kant

1, 15, 17, 20, 24, 36-37, 62, 138-140, 148-149

Discussion

Lucy Allais

there are 2 ways in which Nietzsche objects to Kant:

the pretense at objectivity in morals

the odour of slave morality in the whole idea of being morally duty-bound, and in the second formulation of the CI

Chris Howcroft

kant helps you identify immoral principles, as inconsistent with themselves as a coherent moral system, but doesn�t help you with societies, since the internally consistent moral systems might be inconsistent with each other

Quotes

Nietzsche

The industrious races find leisure very hard to endure: it was a masterpiece of English instinct to make Sunday so extremely holy and boring that the English unconsciously long again for their week‑ and working‑days ‑ as a kind of cleverly devised and cleverly intercalated fast, such as is also to be seen very frequently in the ancient world (although, as one might expect in the case of southern peoples, not precisely in regard to work ‑). There have to be fasts of many kinds; and wherever powerful drives and habits prevail legislators have to see to it that there are intercalary days on which such a drive is put in chains and learns to hunger again. Seen from a higher viewpoint, entire generations and ages, if they are infected with some moral fanaticism or other, appear to be such intercalated periods of constraint and fasting, during which a drive learns to stoop and submit, but also to purify and intensify itself; certain philosophical sects (for example the Stoa in the midst of the Hellenistic culture, with its air grown rank and overcharged with aphrodisiac vapours) likewise permit of a similar interpretation. ‑ This also provides a hint towards the elucidation of that paradox why it was precisely during Europe's Christian period and only under the impress of Christian value judgements that the sexual drive sublimated itself into love (amour passion).

Last essay

To Hegel, there is no world as it appears-to-us and world as it is in-itself, but rather a whole of which both subjects and objects are manifestations. This is why Hegel agrees with Kant�s disassembly of the �soul-thing� into the formal �I� as simply the �unity of self-consciousness�, though he doesn�t see this as a significant advance over Hume. Hegel�s own understanding of the self-conscious subject is as �reality�s points of view on itself� (Priest), as aspects of Geist�s consciousness.

Hegel attacks the Categorical Imperative as being an entirely formal principle of universalisation, and thus empty, since it can be satisfied by actions that would be consistent if everyone were to adopt them as their maxim, without their necessarily being good. Being �good� is defined vacuously in terms of duty, and so Kant�s ethics do not on their own tell us in any way how we ought to act.

Apparently, Kant would have asked himself the question �What is the final end of the whole�, had he thought through his teleology. The answer is �the Good�, requiring God for its realisation. This realisation is the Idea�s dialectical progress through history. While �Hegel�s God postulates the existence of God for the realisation of his cosmic ideals�, in contrast, Kant �postulates the existence of God for the realisation of human ethical goals� (Priest).

Discarded

The first and most obvious point to note in considering Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche is their chronology. Kant and Hegel were contemporaries, but Nietzsche stands somewhat apart from both of them. Moreover, though Kant�s influence is seminal to both of them, Nietzsche could not really have come before Hegel, and Hegel could certainly not have come after Nietzsche.

Points

We can see what Nietzsche might have hated in Kant�s Categorical Imperative. Its universalisability. Its imperative. And, for all that Kant points to autonomy and one�s own formulation of duy, it is binding to us, at least as rational agents. There is no room for the sublime, the joyful, the aesthetically non-dutiful act of pure affirmation.

in a way, Nietzsche might even have wanted to cast Kant as English, in his sublimation through restraint. no, perhaps this is a misreading, since for Kant the drive is never released.

Hegel criticises the emptiness of Kant�s formulation of morality, while Nietzsche is undermining its ultimate foundations, on reason and objectivity.

Nietzsche (vs) Kant vs Hegel on the soul

Nietzsche vs Kant vs Hegel on the in-itself, the Absolute and subjectivism

Nietzsche vs Kant vs Hegel on God

Nietzsche + Hegel = self-actualisation theory

freedom???

Kant�s idea of autonomy is central, and yet highly problematic. It hinges on the phenomena/nuomena distinction, and that we are free in one sense but not the other.

Hegel�s tri-partite system of self-actualisation and the self might be seen as relating to Kant�s. Though more complicated, it allows for different strivings, responsibilities and freedom at different levels, though he rejects any ontological implications.

In one sense, Nietzsche premises freedom (in what we might term the autonomous, or subjectively free, senses) as part of being human, or at least within the potential of the Overman. Without it, little sense could be made of his system or his constant beckoning to the Free Spirits. Nietzsche�s idea of freedom is probably best understood as crucially linked to the will to power, the Overman and the Eternal Recurrence. With power comes joy, and if you can so fully rejoice in the moment so much that you welcome its infinite recurrence, then you are free, in what Hegel might consider an objective, self-actualised way.

Hegel + Kant are both mocking of majestic moral edifices(???)

Nietzsche vs Hegel + Kant as philosophical labourers

theodicy � Hegel history, Nietzsche slave morality and the decadent

all three of them derive their morals from their metaphysics, in some sense

Kant�s metaphysics is informed and restricted by his epistemology, leaving him with a shell of a morality that is founded dubiously on the autonomy of reason

Hegel�s conception of metaphysics is inherently active, in contrast to the seventeenth century conception of the substance of the universe as passive. his universe is inherently rational, and strives towards self-understanding. This is where his basis of self-actualisation is derived, and the freedom-reason identity

Nietzsche could also be seen as founding his morality on his metaphysics. For when God died, metaphysics and morality died with him. This moves his philosophy away from the descriptive task that he sees philosophical labourers like Hegel and Kant attempting, and towards a legislative, creative view of moral philosophy. This whole enterprise can be seen as following straight on from Kant, viewing Kant�s own moral philosophy as a footnote to the opposing premise, that reason cannot be trusted as a means to truth, and indeed neither truth nor the will to truth are solid foundations.

Hegel�s + Nietzsche�s criticisms of Kant�s founding of ethics are deeper than the Categorical Imperative � they are more concerned with his faith in reason as he understood it.

Hegel�s largest disputes with Kant lie in Kant�s refusal or ignorance of speculative, or dialectical, reason. This allowed Hegel to form the metaphysics on which his morality is based.

Nietzsche would simply reject everything that both Hegel and Kant required to function as philosophers.

Glossary

To do

look at Schacht sections

re-read O�Hagan

write Kant intro

structure essay

introduce Hegel and Nietzsche

transcribe points

flesh out

consider conclusions

Questions

the goodness of an action consists purely in the extent to which it is done out of duty, right??? �acting out of duty� versus �acting according to duty�

does Kant fall foul of the issue afflicting utilitarianism, that of disregarding the special importance to us of family members and friends, say, i.e. ignoring humanity�s inherent partiality (personal integrity???)???

can we not just include these in our conception of duty???

how does Kant show that things are wrong according to the Categorical Imperative, if he has no standard by which to judge them by? he looks only for contradiction. for logical contradiction? no, so what sort???

in Kant, how can we all be deciding things on the same grounds, i.e. rationality, and yet come to different conclusions???

is it that we have different priorities/non-rational aspects to us as rational agents which determine our choice???

�Kantian assumption that reason can �induce� action by becoming a �Bewegungsgrund� � a complete mystery by Kant�s own candid admission� - Kaufmann

what about aesthetics?/? is that amoral???

is Nietzsche�s a deontological or teleological or self-actualisation theory???

is there anything that they all agree on???

can�t Hegel�s idea of self-actualising freedom be allowed for within Kant�s broad concept of self-defined �duty�???

where does evil come from in Kant???

what does Nietzsche have to say about freedom???

are the Free Spirits the Overmen???

is there an equivalence between subjective freedom/autonomy and objective freedom/self-actualisation???

end