Talk:Kantianism

Would Kant find Genetic manipulation, engineering and cloning to be immoral? On what grounds. I cant seem to figure it out.

Interesting question. You might try to think it through by focusing on specific hypothetical applications of these technologies. For example, in 2044, two parents have a sick child -- call him Boy. The doctor tells them that Boy needs a kidney transplant, but has a tricky immune system, so the ideal donor would be a brother or sister.

Now, the parents might get to work trying to produce a second child. But doing this the old-fashioned way means 9 months and then some (because one wouldn't operate on a neonate.) So the doctor, "We can quicken the process by cloning."

You can fill in other details if you like. I would imagine Kant would find THIS use of cloning despicable. He would say that it is wrong to use a human being as a means to an end, rather than as an end in himself. In this case a human is being brought into the world as a means, as an organ farm. So some of the possible applications of some of the new technologies, I conclude, Kant would find immoral. --Christofurio 13:30, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

He would say that it is wrong to use a human being as a means to an end This is where your thinking is going wrong. Kant argued that it is wrong to use a person as a means to an end. A person is at once a stronger and a weaker standard than "human being", since some blobs of human tissue (like fetuses, stem cells, strains of genetic information etc) are not persons, while an imaginary race of rationally autonomous aliens would be persons. Therefore it seems clear that a process that creates and kills a blob of human tissue that never develops into personhood is morally neutral under Kant's account. --malathion ^talk 23:08, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You make a distinction between persons on one hand and "blobs of human tissue" on the other, and object to my use of the term "human being." Why? Because you hold that "human being" is an ambiguous term? I suspect you're trying to impose a dichotomy on Kant that wouldn't have occurred to him, and that you haven't really address my hypothetical, which dealt neither with stem cells nor with autonomous aliens, but with born human beings! Cloned, but otherwise normally born. Read it again. --Christofurio 12:26, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

The distinction can be found in Kant's account of persons versus things. "Beings the existence of which rests not on our will but on nature, if they are beings without reason, still have only a relative worth, as means, and are therefore called things, whereas rational beings are called persons because their nature already marks them out as an end in itself, that is, as something that may not be used merely as a means, and hence so far limits all choice (and is an object of respect)," [Groundwork, Kt.4:428]. Until it can be determined that some "blob of tissue" is capable of reason, it should be, according to Kant, considered a "thing" and can therefore be used as merely a means, since it does not yet exist as an end-in-itself. Of course, this should probably be considered within the context that Kant was also of the opinion that infanticide of bastard children does not violate the law (wrt the doctrine of right, so legal not moral law) [Metaphysic of morals, Kt.6:336].Shaggorama 09:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: proposed merge of Kant and Kantianism articles

There is a discussion of this topic under way at the Kant talk page. FYI. fi99ig 19:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents

It seems like there is some complementary information on this page that isn't included at the biography page called Immanuel Kant. My proposal is that we check this page for possible plaigarism, only because the writing quality is very high, and this topic is so difficult. I certainly couldn't say a whole lot about the topics in the headings, and I've studied a lot of philosophy. Kant is obtuse and he makes me crabby.

Also, it seems like it would be good if we listed Philosophers who followed Kant, if we are going to continue having a page called Kantianism. My guess is that most people that could be called "Kantianists" would fit better at the Neo-Kantianism page.

I'm going to start looking for plaigarized sources, because that's a job I can do, but I'd like to leave altering the pages up to someone with a little more experience with Kant. Maybe we can figure out some philosophers that are Kantianists and preserve this page, but my guess is that there isn't any reason to do so.

69.221.216.14 18:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I agree with that. Kant is one of the more difficult philosophers to summarize. I don't know if I would go as far as saying it was plagarized, but that very well maybe so. I say that we keep them seperate because Kant (the man), and Kantianism (the philosophy) are two different things. cheers, --zachjones4 10:49, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kantism

Is there a distinction between Kantianism and Kantism? There's a stub on that page that i think should be deleted. Borisblue 16:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]