Re: shirtless helots & neo-asceticism

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Justin:

>No one would mistake Kant for a hedonist. In his essay on "occupation," he
>says that "the pleasures of life do not fill our time but leave it empty" and
>he recommends activity as opposed to mere enjoyment. However, he is a fan of
>happiness. "Without occupation a man cannot live happily." His view is that a
>life of productive activity that engages the mind and body is better than one
>of passive enjoyment; play is better than idleness, for in play "we at least
>sustain our energies."  The real enemy is laziness, not pleasure. He thinks
>that the businessman who goes to theater after a hard day's work is more
>pleased and contented than if he had nothing to do but to go to the theater.
>He does not say that we should not go to the theater.
>
>His view here sounds a great ldeal like Marx's, or perhaps rather vice versa.

Kant's desire to distinguish his system of morality from utilitarianism,
along with his commitment to bringing morality in harmony with "religion
within the bounds of mere reason," does make his morality privilege the
idea of self-denial.  After all, what matters for Kant's practical reason
is free & good will (noumenon), not the body (phenomenon):

*****   I willingly concede that no-one can have certain awareness of
_having fulfilled_ his duty completely unselfishly....But man is aware with
the utmost clarity that he _ought to fulfill_ his duty completely
unselfishly, and _must_ totally separate his desire for happiness from the
concept of duty, in order to preserve the latter's purity....We can be
aware not so much of any accompanying motives, but rather of our own
self-denial with respect to many motives which conflict with the idea of
duty.  (Kant, "On the Common Saying: 'This May be True in Theory, but it
does not Apply in Practice'")   *****

Try as you might, I don't think you can find Marx emphasizing an awareness
of "self-denial" as a way of highlighting a path toward moral purity.

>In his essay on the sexual impulse, Kant sounds startlingly feminist. "When a
>person loves another purely from sexual desire," then "good will, affection,
>promoting the happiness of others, and finding joy in their happiness" does
>not enter into it, "sexual love makes the loved on an object of appetite; as
>soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts
>away a lemon that has been sucked dry." But sexual love, he says, "can be
>combined with human love." IHe rejects the attitude a man has towardsa woman
>as a mere sexual object, from that perspective, "the fact taht she is a human
>being is of no concern to the man, only her sex is the object of his
>desires."

Kant's infamous definition of marriage, however, outraged even sober Hegel
(no fan of the Romantic exaltation of love & desire):

*****   "On the Right of Domestic Society, Title I, Marriage Right, #24"

_Sexual union_...is the reciprocal use that one human being makes of the
sexual organs and capacities of another....This is either _natural_ use (by
which procreation of a being of the same kind is possible) or an
_unnatural_ use, and unnatural use takes place either with a person of the
same sex or with an animal of a nonhuman species.  Since such
transgressions of laws, called _unnatural_ (_crimina carnis contra
naturam_) or also unmentionable vices, do wrong to humanity in our own
person, there are no limitations or exceptions whatsoever that can save
them from being repudiated completely.  (_The Metaphysics of Morals_)
*****

Unlike Kant, Bentham wrote one of the first (perhaps _the_ first) defense
of same-sex pleasures.  As for Kant's attitude toward women, he might have
thought of women as "humans," but he didn't think of women as capable of
practical reason.  Regarding women's legal status, Kant argues in _The
Metaphysics of Morals_ that "the head of a household" possesses "a right to
persons akin to a right to things" and that he can bring back his wife,
children, and servants "in his control by his unilateral choice" if they
run away.  The clearest expression of Kant's view of women is as follows:
"Apprentices to mechanics or tradesmen, servants who are not employed by
the state, minors..., women in general and all those who are obliged to
depend for their living (i.e. for food and protection) on the offices of
others (excluding the state) -- all these people have no civil personality,
and their existence is, so to speak, purely inherent" (Kant, _The
Metaphysics of Morals_).

>This is not the voice of a joyless prig who renounces pleasure and delight or
>would subordinate us all to a grim law. It sounds like the voice of a
>sensible, decent person who acknowledges the proper place of pleasure,
>including sexual desire. Antirevolutionary? I think not.

Kant's argument against considering happiness (a utilitarian principle) in
the matters of law and morality is directly related to his argument against
revolutionary activities:

*****   It thus follows [from Kant's anti-utilitarian principle of right]
that all resistance against the supreme legislative power, all incitement
of the subjects to violent expressions of discontent, all defiance which
breaks out into rebellion, is the greatest and most punishable crime in a
commonwealth, for it destroys its very foundations.  This prohibition is
_absolute_.  And even if the power of the state or its agent, the head of
state, has violated the original contract by authorizing the government to
act tyrannically, and has thereby, in the eyes of the subject, forfeited
the right to legislate, the subject is still not entitled to offer
counter-resistance.  The reason for this is that the people, under an
existing civil constitution, has no longer any right to judge how the
constitution should be administered.  (Kant, "On the Common Saying: 'This
May be True in Theory, but it does not Apply in Practice'")   *****

Yoshie