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Jonah Makes Me Happy
You remember the old saying, “Any port in a storm.” Mr. Goldberg, recognizes that the recent extension of the Democratic Party’s lunacy to include Infanticide requires more than an ordinary response. Jonah has gone so far as to quote Kant’s categorical imperative.
Meanwhile, the words I have in mind are categorical. Rape and murder are wrong. Everywhere, always. If you’re in a situation where you think a rape or murder might not be wrong, it’s probably either because there was doubt about whether it was really a murder or rape or because you’re a terrible person.
This is what Kant meant by a categorical imperative — something that is true regardless of context. For Kant, the one clear categorical imperative was essentially the Golden Rule: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” We should all “act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.” I’ll be the first to admit that’s a tall order.
As the primary Kant advocate on Ricochet, I am very pleased with Jonah’s citation. Our good Mr. Goldberg has recognized that the Democrats, literally backing the legalization of Infanticide, constitutes a new level of amoral perversity, requiring, yes Kant’s very own, categorical response. One of my most fundamental beliefs is that the 20th century starts off on the wrong foot entirely as it finds a variety of exciting new excuses to divorce itself from all morality even Kant’s super-abstracted version. What I mean is not that Kant is the solution to all problems but rather that if you are so nihilistic that you can’t even handle Kant’s non-theological moral abstraction maybe you really are an amoral monster. In this, Kant is only serving as the canary in the moral coal mine but this is an important function in itself. Jonah who is no slouch (I hope he appreciates the grandness of my praise), recognizes that we are in an amoral storm of epic proportion when one of the two major American political parties is willing to tie itself to Infanticide. Rightly he reaches for something “categorical”. Something that is a bedrock idea that is not relative to the times etc. Halleluyah, Jonah has hit on what I consider to be the intellectual mother load. However, he goes on to discuss the word dogma.
Dogma, Now and Forever
Whenever I hear someone opine how dogma is dangerous or bad or a sign of closed minds, I always wonder whether they realize how dogmatic they sound.
Dogma derives in part from the Greek dokein, meaning that which seems good. “Seems” is an important word here, because sometimes what seems to be true isn’t. And therefore, responsible thinkers should question dogma from time to time. But intellectually serious questioning isn’t synonymous with undermining, dismissing, or destroying. It’s like an inspection of a machine or a barracks or a business model. Sometimes you discover everything is working the way it should. If I check to make sure my daughter is sleeping safe and sound, I don’t wake her up if I find her as expected and hoped. I leave her be.
Since at least Rousseau and Nietzsche, and straight through the American pragmatists, questioning dogma has come to mean dismantling dogma. And this, in itself, has become a kind of dogma.
We teach people that they should reject everything from the conventional wisdom to the teachings of organized religion. Be a maverick. Be true to yourself. Don’t be a conformist. It’s gotten to the point where a superficial nonconformity is the new conformity. Herds of independent minds think that they are rebels by rebelling in great ravenous packs against anyone who disagrees with them. Like flocks of starlings they move in awesome tandem, thinking they are soaring independently when they are in fact swarming together to the beat of their own dogma.
I don’t disagree with a single thing Jonah says here but I have additional help for him from the land of Kant. Kant’s philosophy is a little bit more than just the categorical imperative. In the last 100 years, the number of people willing to spend time studying the whole thing has become less and less. For me, this is not due to any deficit in Kant but rather due to the absurd infatuation with Nihilism that the 20th century has been so bonded to. Let me give Jonah a hand here.
Kant has some overall concepts that relate specifically to Jonah’s discussion of Dogma. In fact, Kant presents the three main stages of Human judgment as the Dogmatic, the Skeptical, and the Critical. (Right away you should notice that the title of Kant’s masterwork is “The Critique of Pure Reason”, hint hint.) In the first stage, Dogmatic judgment, we accept things without question. As children, or anyone learning a totally new subject matter, there is little choice but to at first learn the material as is. We are accepting this knowledge Dogmatically. There is no shame in this. We are not born magically with wisdom installed. The next stage, Skeptical judgment, questions everything that has been learned Dogmatically. Classically when you are a college sophomore you go through this stage big time. Every idea must be challenged. No assumption can be allowed to go unexamined. Finally, after an adequate period of Skepticism, one is prepared to enter the Critical stage. Here the wheat should be separated from the chaff. Your Dogmatic beliefs, having been exposed to severe Skepticism, can now be recast more powerfully. This recasting is the Critical phase. We dispense with what isn’t defensible but we retain what we must consider powerfully true. Respect for a Woman’s autonomy is very important. We must subject simplistic Dogmatic beliefs to Skeptical testing. However, concluding that Infanticide at the whim of a woman, even with the consent of a physician, is nothing but an immoral horror is a Critical judgment. Upon this Critical judgment, we can draw a clear bright line.
To add a little context, at the beginning of the 20th Century Nietzsche said that the categorical imperative, “smelled of cruelty”. I find this both bizarre and very misleading. First, the categorical imperative, as Jonah noticed, is a tall order, not just to achieve but as an intellectual abstraction to understand. I find it very hard to imagine the categorical imperative smelling at all, much less smelling of cruelty. One ought to remember that Hitler found a friend in Nietzsche’s version of morality. That Hitler was attracted to Nietzsche’s philosophy is not necessarily Nietzsche’s fault but one might wonder about him throwing cheap shots at Kant when his own philosophy might be accused of “smelling of murder”.
Anyway, I hope Jonah finds this helpful.
Regards,
Jim
Published in General
Your thoughts regarding dogma resonated with me, although I have to qualify mine. Some time ago, I lost my library and so do not have access to sources I might have. Another piece of this is that I am slowly losing my memory. And, because of this, I cannot recall where I came across a statement made by the then Cardinal Jospeh Ratzinger.
I’ve searched the internet, but nothing comes up. Very frustrating.
What he said was rather startling. Not quoting, but attempting to convey the essence oh reflection. It went something along the lines that, in the final analysis, all we have are propositions. Some of these have more truth to them than others, yet they remain propositions.
Also, I understood him to be indicating that, as you’ve included in your post, “responsible thinkers should question dogma from time to time.” It was remarkable, to me anyways, that he would say as much and helped to strip away some of the negative press given him by the media.
Jim, excellent post.
Happens to all of us.
It’s mortifying. Could remember what I read and from what volume. Could pack, say, 8 – 10 packing boxes and tell you what was in each one. Had some facility with Latin, Attic Greek, and Classical Hebrew. Now, I’d be hard-pressed to translate much of anything. The worst, though, is living alone and not having the reinforcement that couple tend to have.
Friday I took a rather bad spill on some snow-covered ice. Landed on my tailbone. Yet, as I said about it and the memory issue, it could have been worse.
Good work.
Goldberg’s essay really was great.
I love that he made the connection between the CI and the GR. So did Pope Benedict. So do I.
You’re a better man than I am. I find myself walking into a room and forgetting why I’m there.
You mean critical thinking isn’t all about criticizing and rejecting dogmas????
What??
And you mean it’s possible to actually define critical thinking???
What??
Seriously, I love that. I want you to be the Secretary of Education and tell every teacher this definition of CT.
@Randy Webster: “I find myself walking into a room and forgetting why I’m there.”
Just think of the number of opportunities you have as to why you’re there.
An added note: I talk to myself. This bothered me quite a bit. The, one day I was in a store. Talking to myself, I rounded the end of an aisle only to encounter a woman.
I was rather embarrassed and told her what I had been doing. Without batting an eye she replied, “That’s what I always do when I want an expert opinion!” Ha!
Gandalf mentioned to Frodo that the old sometimes just decide to talk to the wisest person in the room.
Can’t say this applies to me. For others, I’m sure it does.
Benedict. My earlier post on the GR in Kant, Confucius, et al.
My early post on critical thinking.
I used to work with people who on an IQ test would probably score pretty high, still they were moral idiots. They believed that people with a sense of traditional morality or who thought in terms of a categorical imperative were emotionally stunted and needed some formal structure to lean on. They regarded that as a shortcoming, a kind of weakness, in contrast with their own enlightened selves, those who were “self-actualized”. They didn’t need … They didn’t depend on … and so on. Ask them for an opinion on the morality of some actions and they would say, “Oh, that’s very hypothetical.” Situational ethics was all they knew.
There’s science behind that one! That link is to Scientific American. I have the original papers in my office, but that’s a start.
As to the OP: James, spot on. I read Kant in college and grad school and found him one of the most appealing secular philosophers and quoted him often. It has frustrated me for decades that an entirely secular, logico-ethical argument can be made against abortion and the reply is “keep your dogma off my body.” Every anti-abortion position is attacked as religious. Obviously, it’s possible to be pro-life and atheist. In fact, I’d argue it would be a better secular humanist position since, if they argue that this is the only life we have, we certainly should not terminate any human life–regardless of age–lightly. Unless they want to argue an entirely utilitarian, dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, might makes right, lifestyle. If they do, they might want to look in the mirror and evaluate how they’d fare against the bigger and stronger.
Did you know that Kant was like 5’0″ tall?
But like it is so hard to read so many words about a dead white male who was totally racist and homophobic because he lived in olden days and I sort of feel this was maybe like really about abortion which is key just like free college tuition or solar power so the whole planet does not die (morality point there, old white dudes) and the whole late term abortion thing should not be discussed because PRIVACY so how can you outlaw something you are not allowed to know about according to the Constitution, dude. #Logic. Stop hating! Use fewer big words.
Signed,
A+ honor student every US college 2019.
Caryn,
Yes, exactly. What goes around comes round. They’ve done in Western Civilization once before with pure amoralism. Actually, my statement isn’t quite accurate. It was a combination of amoralism, a denial of all moral concepts, and a pure anti-moralism which actually blamed Western Civilization’s moral roots for the world’s problems. Once in control, they produced nothing but poverty and murder on a grand scale. May they never gain control again.
Regards,
Jim
I think you hit all the salient points.
Randy,
Like the Hobbit, like Yoda, like Godel, little men with big hearts & brains and plenty of courage.
Regards,
Jim
OldB,
Boy oh boy, do we have our work cut out for us or what!
Regards,
Jim
There should be a fourth step – where in my youth, I subjected my dogmatism to critical thinking and found my wheat, I have subsequently forgotten all reason and the wheat is now my dogma again.
I’m too tired to critically think it through again. And having babies makes me stupider. So expecting me to handle it as well now as I did then is a hard standard to meet.
I like it.
Been there myself with some ideas.
Stina,
You aren’t stupider. In fact, you probably know a lot more. It’s just that you’ve got major distractions (cute little distractions but distractions just the same). Try something next time. Admit you are stymied and say a little prayer about it. You might discover that a few days later a gift is delivered to you in the form of an idea. You didn’t even try to get the idea it just came to you as a gift.
Regards,
Jim
This reminds me, if I remember correctly, of a quotation from Chesterton in Jonah’s section on dogma in The Tyranny of Cliches:
“Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human … when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.”
I like it.
Ahem….
Grades are a tool of the phallocrasy’s oppression. Therefore tests have been eliminated and every student has been given a diploma based on their intersectionality score.
Just a bit of advice: Satire should be just a bit over the line so that one can recognize it as satire. This is entirely believable. I can easily image Alexandria Occasionally Conscious tweeting this.
This can’t be dismissed easily. The problem with propositions is that they can be rejected or at least interpreted differently. What is the response to that? I know how I respond, but I’m afraid that makes me guilty of imposing my religious views, and I’m ok with that. Indeed, I can readily name evil. What of people for whom evil is just a word defined arbitrarily? No philosophy can answer that convincingly or definitevely. Not objectively. I’m happy to accept dogma not only because God commands it, but also because I benefit from these traditional dogmas. Others will think differently. Are they bad people, evil people? I agree, but people have a peculiar habit of not caring what I think is evil.
It would be helpful if I could remember the work related to this. As I recall, Ratzinger was indicating that the Almighty is the final and eternal arbitrator of all. In fellowship with the Lord, we may come to know something of His truth. However, our sin prevents us from know and remaining in its fullness.
Also, as I recall, he speaks not of particular individuals but more in a collective sense, of humankind. And, I understood him along the lines of Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, vv. 8-13. Of note is v. 12. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
I, for one, do not need any “categorical imperative” to help me to the conclusion that infanticide is murder, and is as wrong as any other murder. Kant is handy to call up when you want to make your own moral conclusions into dogma. Just call your conclusion a “categorical imperative” and it becomes an absolute Truth. After all, there are no exceptions to a categorical imperative, and a rule which must be followed, under all circumstances and without exceptions, is the very definition of dogma. I’ll reach my own conclusion in my own way that the legal and moral prohibitions on murder are valid and good, without making any claims about the perfection, inevitability, or inviolability of my conclusion. I will also reach my own conclusion in my own way that those prohibitions are too important to be discarded for the sake of convenience under some particular set of circumstances.
I have a lot of reasons for thinking this way. Among them is that I don’t want to live in a world where lefties can claim the status of “categorical imperative” for those beliefs that they can (and do) will to be universal laws.
So, for the record, and without making any claim of perfection, inevitability, or inviolability of my opinion, I will just say what I always say on this subject: Kant is bunk.