Today in class, we talked about Kant, and got a little sidetracked on the topic of karma. A lot of the class seemed to be not-quite-happy with Kant's 1st proposition of duty. By definition, karma(which I DO NOT believe in) is the "force" generated by a person's actions to perpetuate transmigration and its ethical consequences. Basically, it's this universe juice that perpetuates the non-Christian belief that good deeds beget a good life and a spot in Heaven, while bad deeds beget a horrible life and a spot in Hell, and the driving force is not people, or society, but rather a spiritual force somewhat like that of chi. What I was trying to get across in class was that karma is entirely different from the psychologically proven fact that when people see you or perceive you to be a virtuous, goodhearted person, they tend to react to you in a more kind and generous fashion. It isn't some weird universe juice, or voodoo or even karma. Just the simple idea that people are more sympathetic toward those who seem more worthy and appreciative of sympathy and compassion. My theory is that this is because every person alive has had to ask for help in one way or another at some point in their lives, and they remember that. And whether or not they received the help they asked for or not, they remember feeling entirely helpless, and desire to help others with that same feeling of helplessness.
Now that we've established that, back to Kant. He had three propositions of duty, which make a good amount of sense, especially if you have a strong moral compass that often guides you into making good decisions. But what about those people who were raised differently from us and have a different set of moral beliefs? Whose are right and whose are wrong? Who is to say? And would his actions driven by that moral compass still be considered good because it was done out of his sense of duty?
I was late to class today, and when Dr. Johnson made the reference to a student's motives for being late to class, I couldn't help feeling that they were somewhat pointed at me. I was not trying to be disrespectful, and in fact, I HATE being late. I hate that it makes people wonder about my level of respect toward them. I hate that it undermines my reputation with the person with which I have an appointment. I was late today for the simple fact that I have had a really terrible day, and one of the things that made it terrible was the traffic which made me slightly late to class today. That is, I wasn't acting in a purposeful way in order to be late to class for some means to an end. I was late because my car broke down Wednesday, and I just got it fixed today in time to come to class, and got stuck in traffic along the way.
I think you bring up a good point about people's moral compasses being different. Kant seems to make the assumption that everyone will just agree on what is moral or not. He has nothing to base what is moral on except what people think is right which can be flawed. He seems to think there is some sort of universal conscience that everyone possesses inside them which is not necessarily true. He seems to establish an intrinsic good that still has no solid base and still must make further assumptions unlike aristotle or lucretius who establish happiness and pleasure as the intrinsic good which requires no other assumptions.
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