𝔎𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔨 𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔘𝔯𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔩𝔰𝔨𝔯𝔞𝔣𝔱

UPCOMING
Critique of Judgment, 7/14/24, Session 1 - First Introduction, §§ I - V
Critique of Judgment, 7/28/24, Session 2 - First Introduction, §§ VI - VIII
Critique of Judgment, 8/11/24, Session 3 - finish the First Introduction

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORALITY AND HAPPINESS

Kindness can, indeed, be connected with justice, but one cannot count on those who deserve punishment actually receiving it. Thus punishment is a physical harm that even if it is not connected with moral wickedness as a natural consequence, would still have to be connected with it as a consequence of moral law. And so, too, reward?

The uniting of representations in consciousness is judgment. Thinking therefore is the same as judgment-- from the Prolegomena

Given two persons, one tormented by conscience and another satisfied by their moral conduct. There must be a source for the unease of the one and the satisfaction of the other. Obviously such torment must imply a morally good version of those persons against which a judgment can be made. Moreover, the concept of morality and duty would therefore have to precede any regard for satisfaction or dissatisfaction and cannot be derived from it.

We tend to think we have a duty to happiness until someone behaves immorally in order to attain it. Then we realize a higher duty. The maxim of self-love merely advises; the law of morality commands.

To satisfy categorical moral commands is within everyone's power at all times; to satisfy the empirically conditioned precept of happiness is but seldom possible. A command that everyone should seek to make himself happy would be foolish, for one never commands of someone what he unavoidably wants already., but to command morality under the name of duty is quite reasonable for what a person wills to do, she also can do.

There is the idea that transgression of a moral law deserves punishment. Justice is essential in this concept. Whether or not the wicked actually suffer punishment is irrelevant, and to look upon all punishments and rewards as mere machinery in the hands of a higher power, serving only to put rational beings into activity toward their final purpose (happiness) is patently a mechanism which does away with freedom.

CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT

Kant drafted two versions of the introduction to the Critique of Judgment, but published only the second draft. Even so, the Cambridge edition of the Critique, which is my version, DOES include both introductions, as does the competing Pluhar edition. And we WILL be reading both. In the Cambridge edition the "First Introduction"is at the beginning of the text, followed by the Preface and the Second Introduction. The Pluhar edition places it at the end of the text in an appendix. For those of you who have neither edition, I am providing a copy below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13PgHa2d-W65im-6Ew7lMCmuYA6gVCY3a/view?usp=drivesdk

PARTING THOUGHTS FROM THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON

All possible grounding principles that influence the will to action are either merely subjective and therefore empirical or also objective and rational, and both of these classifications can be subdivided into external or internal.

CAMBRIDGE EDITORS ON KANT

The paragraph, even more the sentence, is often Kant’s unit of argument, and one can easily transform a continuous argument into a mere series of assertions by breaking up a sentence so as to make it more readable. Kant has therefore greatly affected my methods of interpretation.

CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT-- WHAT IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO

"There are three faculties of the mind: cognition, feeling pleasure and displeasure, and desire. In the Critique of Pure Reason, I found a priori principles for the first of these, and in the Critique of Practical Reason a priori principles for the third. The analysis of the faculties of the human mind allowed me to discover something systemati and has put me on the path to recognizing three parts of philosophy: theoretical philosophy, teleology, and practical philosophy, of which the second is, to be sure, the least rich in a priori grounds of determination."

There is "an understanding of reason [that is more] refined as well as ordinary understanding . The former serves the life of contemplation, the latter serves the life of action, and the critique of reason leads us at the same time to the critique of taste, that is to say, aesthetics. Defining the limits of the two is a means to a better understanding of them both."

In a judgment of taste, a person can claim intersubjective validity for the feeling of pleasure that she experiences in response to a beautiful object because that pleasure is produced not by a practical concern for utility but by the harmonious play of imagination and understanding which the beautiful object induces. She can rightly claim validity for her feeling because these cognitive faculties must work pretty much the same way in all of us.