The Holocaust and the Categorical Order
Following a video by Allinson in which he explains why most people did not rebel in the Holocaust and go like sheep to the slaughter, he says that it is a moral choice: in the family. A father or a boy could have escaped the ghetto, a girl could have jumped out of the train. But they chose to stay with the children, the mothers and the elderly and die.
I wondered if, in a corrected situation, everyone should have acted according to the categorical order – what was best for the whole, that they should rebel, that they should flee, that they should all join the partisans, and try to change the situation, even at the cost of abandoning the weaker family members.?
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You once said that there is no non-Kantian morality. Here you are limiting the absoluteness of the categorical imperative. What did you mean?
I have written several times that Kantian morality has two components: 1. Its autonomy (meaning that the action is done for the sake of morality and not for some other purpose, benefit, satisfaction, etc. to differentiate it from heteronymic morality). 2. Its practical content: Do whatever you would like to be a general law. There is no morality that does not fulfill 1. Other doctrines (heteronyms) do not talk about morality but deny its existence. But there are certainly additional moral rules beyond 2 (to the extent that 2 is even well defined. It is not). I gave the example of lying.
I understand. Methodological note: I'm pretty sure that Kant's innovation is component 2. Component 1 is trivial and has been known for ages. Therefore, the formulation of "there is no morality that is not Kantian" is a bit misleading.
I don't remember the context you're quoting. I think I usually say this in this context. This element is far from trivial, and it's evidence that many people talk about heteronymic morality. I argue that heteronymic morality is an oxymoron. If it's heteronymic, it's not morality. Just sharing the name. By the way, a significant part of Kant's work in ethics was to negate heteronomous morality. That's why it's considered his innovation, even though he obviously didn't invent it. He's the figure to whom it's associated. Just like Aristotle didn't invent logic because they knew everything before him. But he's the one who achieved it (in the Organon) and therefore it's named after him.
Beautiful! You updated me. Thank you.
Question for Rabbi Michi.
The categorical imperative requires that if you see a girl drowning in a river you must save her.
But if I know that this girl is Hitler's mother, what is her ruling?
What does this have to do with the categorical imperative? Kant was the one who innovated that if you see a drowning person, you should save them?
Hypothetical question. It is impossible to know such a thing and therefore there is no point in discussing it.
Kant didn't innovate this of course, but the tool he devised for what constitutes a moral act dictates that we act in this way, which is why I phrased it this way.
So what if this is a hypothetical situation? He seeks to clarify a principle regarding how one identifies behavior as moral or not. Are there no invented and improbable situations through which I can criticize this or that principle?
It is not improbable, but impossible. A person with a choice cannot be known in advance what he will choose. Therefore, what is your point: either he is not a person (he has no choice) or your knowledge is uncertain.
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