Monthly Archives: January 2020

Moral Argument as Kantian Universalization

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This post assumes some familiarity with Kant’s moral theory. However, this is not exegesis of Kant’s thought. What I write is best interpreted as going off on a tangent* from the text to develop my own thoughts from a fragment of Kant’s thought. In this case, my own thoughts are those of my past three posts: “How do we prove a moral principle?” And “What is accomplished by a proof of a moral principle?”

The fragment of Kant’s thought is his first statement of the categorical imperative in his Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals.**

It reads: Act only on maxims which you can will to be a universal law of nature.

In my previous post I came to the conclusion that relative to certain assumptions – a stance – a proper argument for a moral principle shows that activity in accord with the principle is rational activity and that activity in accord with the principle is directed towards attaining and maintaining conditions good for human beings over and beyond the good of being rational.

In the following I write of proofs as characterized above.

My Kantian speculation is that proof of a moral principle is showing that you can will a maxim to be a universal law of nature.

Let me illustrate this speculation with the principle for male sexuality of the previous post which I call the Paternal Principle.

As a maxim or principle for personal action the Paternal Principle becomes:

I shall not intentionally seek an orgasm except in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom I am committed for life to care for her and any child resulting from the coitus.

A “Kantian” proof that a man is acting in accord with laws of morality by following this maxim would show that any man acting in accord with principle is following a principle which is part of rational activity and is part of the human good of marriage. In other words, the proof shows what a rational seeker of human good would do. Any other course of conduct, for male sexuality, would be inconsistent with being a rational seeker of human good.

As the line of thought develops, an assumption that every human being is potentially a rational seeker of human good is a crucial assumption.

In light of such a proof one can will that nature be so constructed that every man actually acts on the principle on the basis of psychological-physiological laws of nature. But one could not consistently will that some potential seeker of human good be causally determined not to realize their potential.

In a way, the line of thought is that you can not consistently say “This is the way an ideal human being would act but in fact some human is not to act that way.”

This is far from standard ways of discussing Kantian generalization. The usual approach is to inspect a generalization of a maxim itself for consistency. The approach here is to consideration of consistency only after a moral proof of a principle has been presented. The question of consistency is “In light of a proof showing certain activity is what a rational seeker of human good would do, can maxims be consistently be willed as causal laws for what a rational seeker of human good does.”

I cannot resist alluding to the four examples Kant used to illustrate his categorical imperative.
1. Suppose it was shown that humans would flourish in their commercial life if all kept promises. It cannot be consistently that in a human society of rational seekers of human good some would not keep promises.
2. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to maintain their health and life. It cannot be consistently willed that it becomes a causal law that for such beings some choose to end their lives.
3. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to develop skills. It cannot be consistently willed that it becomes a causal law that some such seekers choose to develop no skills.
4. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to cooperate to help others attain human goods. It cannot be consistent will that it becomes a causal law that some such seekers become totally uncooperative.

* I have been off on this tangent for over twenty years

I wrote a book on Kant’s moral theory and religion It is
A Kantian Condemnation of Atheistic Despair: A declaration of dependence. Peter Lang, N.Y. 1997
See pp. 200ff for remarks on Kantian moral universalization.
See pp. 170 ff of my more recent book.
Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional sexual morality as an antidote to nihilism, Tate Enterprises, Oklahoma City, 2014

**handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kanst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde AK IV 421

Translations of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Morals will have the AK edition vol. and p. # in the margins.

Autonomous obedience vs. autonomous legislation

Core philosophy, Moral philosophy, Realism vs. anti-realism

In the course of several posts I have struggled to articulate what I hope to show by justifying a moral principle for male sexuality and how I should go about showing it. The principle, in agreement with traditional Catholic morality, stated:

Thou shall not intentionally seek an orgasm except in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom you are committed for life to care for her and any child resulting from the coitus.

I hoped to show that independently of religious considerations, a man who follows, or struggles to follow, the principle has a character trait which makes him a better human being – a man closer to being as he ought to be than if he followed any other principle for sexuality.

I came to the conclusion that any arguments for the principle would have to be based on assumptions or, as I say, from a stance. Consequently, the arguments might not be compelling for all intelligent people. From a stance, arguments should be of two types. One line of argument would show that activity in accord with the principle is rational activity. Another line of argument would show that activity in accord with the principle is directed towards attaining and maintaining conditions good for human beings over and beyond the good of being rational. With respect to the principle for male sexuality, the human good would be life-long monagamous marriage.

I need to emphasize a feature of the human goods. They are not goods independent from morality with morality being a means to their attainment. The human goods attained and maintained by activity in accordance with the principle are not conditions apart from activity in accordance with the principle. Activity in accord with the principle is not only a means to the good but also a feature of the good brought about. For instance, activity in accord with a principle for traditional male sexuality not only produces a good marriage but it is also part of a good marriage.

I do not need to invent new arguments. For showing that the rationality of the activity, I can adapt arguments from what some call “The Old Natural Law Theory” or better: Thomistic Moral Theology. For showing that activity in accordance with the principle is directed towards human flourishing, I can adapt arguments from what is frequently called “New Natural Law Theory.”

I write of adapting the arguments because I do not make any assumption that an intelligent human being will take activity in accordance with the principle as morally binding upon clearly understanding the line of argument. There is still need for someone to choose to be obligated or something to impose the moral obligation.

As I interpret both types of natural law theories, they hold that nature -reality- formed human nature so that once a human being clearly recognizes that a principle promotes rational activity directed toward human good the human being because of a law for its nature chooses to be bound by and follow the principle. I believe that to be morally bound by a law there must always be the possibility of rejecting the law.

So I concluded my previous post confessing that I still felt that I had not uncovered all that I hoped for in a justification for a moral principle. Now I think that I can articulate what Ithought was lacking. I wanted to show that the moral principle is true and I do not think that reasoning alone brings us to moral truth.

Here is how the issue of truth comes up. After being persuaded by the arguments that activity in accord with the principle is rational and directed towards human good, there still needs to be imposition of a moral obligation to act in accord with this principle. This imposition could be self imposed or imposed by something outside our self.

Self imposed obligation could be called “autonomous moral legislation.” Unfortunately, autonomous moral legislation might be only a human decision to make such a moral rule. The rule could be invented; not discovered. It might be invented in response to our reasoning.

But how could a rule-an imperative- be discovered in thought independent reality? What corresponded to a rule in reality would not be a fact or a descriptive law of nature. It would have to be something like a command. At this time, the best I can say that the aspect of mind-independent reality corresponding to a moral law would be something we “hear” rather than “see,” and have the possibility of being accepted and obeyed or being rejected and disobeyed. If, and this is a huge “if,” there is something like hearing an imperative from mind independent reality, then there is a true or actual imperative. Still, though, there is a need for a choice to accept or reject the imperative. This could be called the “autonomy of obedience.”

If there is a place for autonomy of moral obedience, then we can talk of moral laws being true.

Consider a definition of “truth” which extends it to include truth for norms.

Truth for facts and norms

For facts to think what is true is to think of what is that it is and to think of what is not that it is not.
For norms to think what is true is to accept as obligatory what ought to be and to accept as forbidden what ought not be.

But if we can receive moral laws from an moral authority in mind independent reality, what is the role of arguments for moral principles? The arguments are valuable checks on illusions with respect to hearing the moral law, they help us to articulate what we hope to discover as true, they show others the plausibility of our rules and may lead others to investigate our moral rules. *

In my book, I struggled in Chapter XI with laying out what beyond reasoning needs to be done to discover what we ought to do.

* My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification see pp. 72ff. for discussion of moral harm. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Why Justify a Moral Principle?

Book promotion, Character Morality, Moral philosophy

I wrote a book* trying to justify a well know, even if not widely accepted, moral principle for male sexuality. In the course of several previous posts, I have been exploring moral theory, from the perspective of the consequences of mere violation of a moral principle. I reached the stage where I realized that a principle needs to be justified from a stance – some basic assumptions about sexuality. Then the argument from the stance must show that the principle follows from the stance and obedience to the principle is for human good. The purpose of this post is to ask myself again why I want to justify the principle along with noting that before presenting a justification I need to consider work of John Henry Newman. I have read that my approach to justification might well be similar to Newman’s way of justify assent to principles.

The principle commands men:

Thou shall not intentionally seek an orgasm except in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom you are committed for life to care for her and any child resulting from the coitus.

Perhaps my Catholic religion led me to take the principle seriously. However, once I learned basic biology the principle seemed sensible to me. Orgasms are for sperm dispersal. The purpose of the inward drive and pleasure are to get men to disperse sperm. Coitus is primarily for “baby making.”
Mothers and babies need care and protection.

Of course, I realize that the principle is hard to follow and is contradicted by many other suggestions. I hesitate to call them principles; let alone moral principles.

I am ashamed to confess that I have not always lived up to the principle. But I have never really doubted it. After violations in my teens as a young soldier and in early courting, I have obeyed the principle for over sixty years of married life. For a time, that involved living in accord with the so-called “rhythm method.” It has required discipline of mind and body. For instance, I love long distance running. I also appreciated how marathon training made obedience easier. There was a thirty five year period in my life during which I kept myself in condition so that I could run a full twenty six point 2 mile marathon on any weekend. Even in my eighties I discipline my eyes and thoughts.

I am not trying to justify the principle because I want to show myself that I have been living correctly most all of my life with respect to sexuality. I am confident that with respect to sexuality, I have.

So, when I consider only myself: Why I am still trying to justify the principle? There is something intellectual with which I am not satisfied. I am searching for a line of thought leading to a conclusion of which I can say “It has to be this way.” I am still searching for an intellectual compulsion.

When I consider others, I hope that my thoughts in these posts and my book are read by others. But what do I want to show others? I want to show that independently of religious considerations, a man who follows, or struggles to follow, the principle has a character trait which makes him a better human being – a man closer to being as he ought to be than if he followed any other principle for sexuality.

In a recent New York Review of books, Gary Wills had remarked that the Catholic Church in promoting the principle was promoting some type of “goofiness” about sex. Wills’ outlook is widely held. I hope to show that that widespread outlook on sex is foolishness.

* My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification see pp. 72ff. for discussion of moral harm. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Reconsideration of Justifying a Moral Principle

Moral philosophy

The previous post reflections on combining duty and love in moral thinking have significantly altered my beliefs on how to conduct the aspect of moral thinking which is justifying to my self and persuading others that a moral rule is correct.

A goal for writing blog posts has been to discover a better way of justifying a moral principle than I used in my book** to justify what I called a fundamental principle for male sexuality. I sensed that I had ignored something important.

Essentially the principle stated: A male should not intentionally seek an orgasm except in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom he had a life-long commitment to care for her and any child resulting from their intercourse.

Also in my book I had introduced a notion of moral harm which I have been exploring and developing in many of my recent posts. This exploration of moral harm, which is harm which ought to be, led me to fundamental contradiction in moral thinking. The contradiction, which must be resolved in some way to avoid irrationality, led me to the judgment that reflective moral thinking, which is moral thinking after resolution of the fundamental contradiction, will be a humanly constructed conceptual scheme or stance on how moral thinking ought to be conducted.

To justify a moral rule requires thinking about -reflecting upon- moral thinking for the rule is in moral thinking. Because justifying a moral principal is always in reflective moral thinking and hence within a conceptual scheme we need to concede that our justification are based on the assumptions of our stance. Consequently, we need to concede that some intelligent people who think consistently about morality may reject our justifications without being irrational.

In my book, I had already conceded that justifications of moral principles would be relative to a stance. So, I conceded that justifications of moral rules could have only persuasive or rhetorical force.

For me, justification of a moral rule would be bipartite. First, there would be acceptance of the rule as correct within in a stance. This is showing that the rule is a principle of reasoning, even if reasoning from a stance. Second, there would be discovering in daily life that the moral authority commanded the rule. The moral authority’s command would confirm the stance.

However, what I had overlooked in my book was trying to show that the rule in question promoted and protected some basic human good*. In short, I totally overlooked the need for love in moral thinking!

I argued that the proposed rule for male sexuality was the simplest rule for male sexuality. Its simplicity made it the only genuine rule for male sexuality because once qualifications are made the proposed sexual moral rules become at best some kind of guideline. I then argued that some rule for male sexuality is better than none. I pointed out that lawless sexuality readily leads to nihilism.

I now realize that a complete justification for a moral rule needs to show that the rule is proper rule – a rule of reason- within the stance. But also show how it promotes and protects basic human goods.

*The New Natural Law view holds that practical reason, that is, reason oriented towards action, grasps as self-evidently desirable a number of basic goods. These goods, which are described as constitutive aspects of genuine human flourishing, include life and health; knowledge and aesthetic experience; skilled work and play; friendship; marriage; harmony with God, and harmony among a person’s judgments, choices, feelings, and behavior. From an essay by Christopher Tollefsen on The New Natural Law Theory. See New Natural Law Basic Goods .

I am not a new natural law theorist because I do not claim that reason grasps certain goods as self evident. I simply believe that it is highly probable people will find the proposed goods as highly desirable and thereby many will be persuaded to accept as morally binding rules which promote and protect them.

** My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification see pp. 72ff. for discussion of moral harm. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.