PHIL 2525 Lecture 15

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PHIL 2525 Lecture 15

• Chapter 9 Kant and Respect for Persons

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Mirandola puts words into the mouth of God

• NASA image called The Eye of God

• We have made you neither of heavenly nor of
  earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so
  that with free choice and dignity, you may
  fashion yourself into whatever form you choose.

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Pico de la Mirandola from Oration on the
Dignity of Man (1486)...

• Imagine! The great generosity of God! The
  happiness of man! To man it is allowed to be
  whatever he chooses to be!

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9.1 The Idea of Human Dignity

• Mirandolas take
• As soon as an animal is born, it brings out of
  its mothers womb all that it will ever
  possess.....
• Man, when he entered life, the Father gave the
  seeds of every kind and every way of life
  possible. Whatever seeds each man sows and
  cultivates will grow and bear him their proper
  fruit.

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Pico de la Mirandola

• Who could not help but admire this great
  shape-shifter?

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Where does that feeling of superiority and
specialness come from?

• The Bible tells us so...
• Says we have dominion
• Says that the world was created for us
• For our food and medicine
• For our welfare

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Only God has the right to play God...

• Belief that underpins arguments against
• Suicide
• Death penalty
• Euthanasia
• Abortion
• War
• (some odd bedfellows there...)

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Albert Schweitzers answer....
• All life...
• Insects
• Flowers
• Leaves
• All Life...

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Jainisms answer...
• All life...
• Insects
• Flowers
• Leaves
• All Life...

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The sanctity of life...

• Descartes take
• Animals are automatons ...they cant speak and
  they dont have souls....

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The sanctity of life...

• Kants take
• But so far as animals are concerned, we have no
  direct duties. Animals...are there merely as
  means to an end. That end is man...

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Christianity has a variety of answers...
• Genesis 126
• And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
  our likeness and let them have dominion over the
  fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
  and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
  over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
  earth.

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Christianity has a variety of answers...
• Psalm 13913-16 
•  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my
  body      and knit me together in my mothers
  womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully
  complex!      Your workmanship is marveloushow
  well I know it. You watched me as I was being
  formed in utter seclusion,      as I was woven
  together in the dark of the womb. You saw me
  before I was born.      Every day of my life was
  recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid
  out      before a single day had passed.

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Christianity has a variety of answers...
• Some beautiful, some not so beautiful...

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The sanctity of life...

• But which life counts?
• Christianity has a variety of answers...
• Some beautiful, some not so beautiful...

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If we take religion out of the picture?

• Which religion is true anyway?
• Where does the sacredness come from...or go?
• Recent neuroscience....neural monism

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The sanctity of life...

• So Sanctity of Life refers to human life...
• Life with a divine soul?
• Life created in the image of God?
• But still just words in the mouths of many.....

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The sanctity of life...

• Perhaps its quality of life that counts instead
  of mere quantity...
• Sanctity of life values any life above no life
• Quality of Life values life from very positive to
  very negative (no life is neutral)

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9.1 The Dignity of Life

• The dignity of humans comes from
  rationality....
• Our rationality makes us intrinsically
  worthwhile...

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Problems with Kants formulation?

• What about irrational humans?

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Problems with Kants formulation?

• What about irrational humans?
• At both ends of life?

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Problems with Kants formulation?

• What about irrational humans?
• At both ends of life?
• A sucker born every minute...who is culpable?

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Problems with Kants formulation?

• What about irrational humans?
• At both ends of life?
• A sucker born every minute...who is culpable?
• What of thinking computers?

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Problems with Kants formulation?

• What about irrational humans?
• At both ends of life?
• A sucker born every minute...who is culpable?
• What of thinking computers?
• Does more rationality count more?

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Categorical Imperative(2 formulations)

• Act only according to that maxim by which you can
  at the same time will that it should become a
  universal law.
• Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your
  own person or in that of another, always as an
  end and never as a means only.

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Treating others as ends involves....

• A strict duty of beneficence....
• Helping (and not hindering) their plans, dreams,
  safety....
• Respecting their rationality....
• They are the arbiters of what is best for them...
• Their rationality serves them like yours serves
  you...

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Two kinds of justice Distributive and
Retributive....

• Distributive dividing up what there is....
• Retributive an eye for an eye...a tooth for a
  tooth...

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Utilitarians on Retributive Justice...

• Retributivism increases the sum total of misery
  in the world....but we dont want criminals out
  on the street .... so....we better think fast...

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Utilitarians on Retributive Justice...

• Comfort to the victims...

• The universe has brought about balance...I have
  closure

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Utilitarians on Retributive Justice...

• Comfort to the victims...
• Public safety...

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Utilitarians on Retributive Justice...

• Comfort to the victims...
• Public safety...
• Deterrent effect...

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Utilitarians on Retributive Justice...

• Comfort to the victims...
• Public safety...
• Deterrent effect...
• Rehabilitation...

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9.3

• Like all orthodoxies, the utilitarian theory of
  punishment has generated opposition.
• Bertrand Russell Orthodoxy is the grave of
  intelligence. No matter what orthodoxy it is...

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9.3 Kants Retributivism...

• Kant finds Utilitarianism Retributivism
• incompatible with human dignity...
• It uses prisoners as means to an end...
• It messes with prisoners autonomy...
  (Rehabilitation is really re-education)

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9.3 Kants Retributivism...

• Instead....Kant says....
• We have the right to lock them up just
• because they deserve it...
• But the punishment should be proportional to the
  crime...

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9.3 Kants Retributivism...

• We want to hold
• criminals morally
• responsible....
• But...we can only do that
• when we allow them (in
• hindsight) the dignity of
• choice....

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At the end...this little delight...

• Justice in kind plays out the Categorical
  Imperative for the criminal...

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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment...
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The Experience Machine....
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Cypher and the experience machine...

• http//whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/new_p
  hil_mov_experience.html
• http//ca.youtube.com/watch?vZ7BuQFUhsRM