[PEN-L:8791] Re: Marx and 19th century racism

["Ricardo Duchesne" <RDUCHESN@xxxxxxxx>]

> So in the case of Kant, I find it useful in my own work to bring in
> concepts of Kantian moral reasoning.  I've looked at them and checked to
> see if there is hidden baggage, but I haven't found any.  Like many
> others on this list, I suspect, I was drawn to Kant because philosophers
> use his perspective as a pole of opposition to utilitarianism -- and the
> critique of economic utilitarianism is an important part of the critique
> of neoclassical economics generally.

Dorman,

Recall that Kant sought to find a moral law based on reason and
reason alone, as the only way one could formulate a universal
criterion of moral value. He argue against Hume that an
empirical study of morality, of the customs and values of different
cultures, would forever remained trapped within  the relativity of
such values. But Hegel was correct that Kant only gave
us the *form* of this law - as if such a law arose strictly out
of the genius of Kant's mind,  rather than being an expression of the
self-knowledge that the human community had come to achieve at that
time.
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