Discussion on Immanuel Kant

Before I begin my direct discussion of sacrifice as understood in the philosophies of Kant and Bataille, it seems necessary to discuss the philosophical understanding which surrounded their beliefs on the topic of sacrifice. Discussion of each philosopher’s notion of the sacred, or in Kant’s case the noumenal, will likely be of central importance to the discussion of the sacrifice, as even a brief examination show that the word sacrifice itself is related in meaning to the word sacred.

In order to develop an understanding of Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and subsequently, the significantly more fluid philosophical work of George Bataille, it helps to grasp the progression of western thought from which they proceeded. While I will not explain in this paper the entirety of notable western philosophical thought which preceded them, I will briefly comment on the Rationalist and Empiricist movements which were the backdrop and groundwork for Kant’s philosophical writing.

The Rationalists, as the term suggests, were a series of philosophers who believed that reason was the only reliable source of philosophical disclosure, and the only way to make progress in understanding the world. They also proposed that because senses could be fooled, experience was not useful in generating reliable philosophical insights. A reaction to them came in the form of the Empiricists, who suggested that only experience in the world could teach you anything. From these two traditions of philosophy, Kant emerges as a kind of synthesis.

In Kant’s transcendental philosophy, we see a stark distinction between the phenomenal realm and the noumenal realm. In the phenomenal realm is found all phenomena. That is, it holds all that which is part of the material order of the world. The noumenal realm contains the moral law, reason, ideas, and anything which is not a part of the material order of the world and yet is still in some way present. This distinction afforded Kant a resolution to the discrepancy between the rationalist and empiricist traditions, without giving up the advantages of either tradition. For example, Kant now had the basis for a priori and a posteriori knowledge. That is, he could reconcile in a satisfactory manner why some things could be known independent of experience, and why some things could be known only after an experience. This distinction plays itself out in this discussion of the sacred and sacrifice, as the sacred, in Kant’s work, is found entirely in the noumenal realm.

However, in order to proceed further, I should lay forth what exactly is meant by “the sacred”. The sacred is a term describing that which is valued independent of material systems of valuation. Hence the significance of a wooden cross, favorite shirt, or flag in the face of apparent material worthlessness.

While in my readings of Kant, I have not come across a specific discussion of the sacred itself, Kant does discuss the noumenal realm and its relationship to other topics (the church for example). I think that in these discussions of the relationship between the noumenal and other topics we see a description of the sacred. For my primary example I would point to his discussion in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. In a section on “Philosophical Account of the Victory of the Good over the Evil Principle in the Founding of a Kingdom of God on Earth”, he discusses the difference between ecclesiastical faith and pure religious faith. He makes the point that faith can either be centered on a noumenal understanding, or a phenomenal understanding. Phenomenal understandings of faith are characterized by adherence to doctrine. By contrast, noumenal understandings of faith are characterized by an attempt to do good independent of doctrine. For example, one of the long standing arguments in religion, which extends back to the birth of Christianity, is between following the letter of God’s law or trying to get at the spirit of the law. The sacred is described to some extent in this account of pure religious faith. It is faith which is based to some extent outside the order of the material world.

Similarly Bataille holds to the idea that the sacred is not something which is to be grasped in the way in which someone would grasp the profane, or as Kant would describe it, the phenomenal. He describes the sacred as containing spirits, gods, and other things which could be understood in a mythological sense, or to put it another way, in a supernatural-physical sense. However, I think by these terms he does not refer to physical entities so much as something of a more intangible nature. Intangible, felt (emotionally) rather than sensed, is the nature of Bataille’s notion of the sacred. Even in the very concrete thought of Heidegger, mood and feeling are a part of that which is observed only in the introspective sense, or the sense of looking beyond the physicality of phenomena. Another way of explaining this is to say that the sacred is the realm of meaning. Bataille’s statement “Animals, plants, tools, and other controllable things form a real world with the bodies that control them, a world subject to and traversed by divine forces, but fallen.”[1] is an indicator of this.

What sacrifice holds in terms of common meaning, both with Kant and Bataille and in terms of lexical definition, is that sacrifice is the giving up for the divine. In other words, sacrifice is the giving up of the materially valuable for that which is spiritually meaningful. In terms of a more precise philosophical definition, sacrifice is the act of exchanging that which is valued for meaning. This is why the objects of sacrifice are lost or destroyed in the sacrifice and why the best sacrifices are things of value. If nothing is given up, nothing can be exchanged. If much is given up, much is gained. This is very likely why Jesus says “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.”[2] (Mark 8:35)

This, put in more Kantian terms is sacrifice as an act which takes something phenomenal and lends some sort of noumenal value. However, though this is the same idea in Kantian terminology, it is so for purposes of comparison, not to indicate a Kantian perspective. While again, I have not come across a direct discussion of self sacrifice with respect to the moral law, as near as I currently understand Kant, I find that a particular quote sheds some light on how Kant would have addressed the issue. “When any one does, in conformity with duty, more than he can be compelled to do by the law, it is said to be meritorious (meritum). What is done only in exact conformity with the law, is what is due (debitum). And when less is done than can be demanded to be done by the law, the result is moral demerit (demeritum) or culpability.”[3] I understand this to mean that Kant would hold that if someone exceeds their moral responsibility they gain what might in Bataille be found as the value of sacrifice. However, the material impact of loss incurred while carrying out the moral law would be largely irrelevant. This seems to me to be the most significant difference between Bataille and Kant with respect to sacrifice and the sacred.

Also, as Kant did not directly address the sacred as the sacred, and rather addressed the notion of the noumenal realm and its moral law, Kant was ill equipped to address the significance of the destruction of valuable phenomenal objects for the purpose of attaining spiritual gain. It is explained in Bataille’s work that sacrifice is a making of meaning out of profane. He also refers to this as, making the useful useless, and as moving the profane into the sacred.

In conclusion it seems as though sacrifice is distinct for Kant and Bataille in that Kant’s conceptions of the noumenal realm and of the moral law leave no room for anything except duty. For Kant, only when sacrifice is the giving up of something for duty, will a sacrifice produce its intended result. Even then it is the consistency with duty, not with the giving up of anything that gives meaning. This is because the phenomenal realm is valueless and irrelevant to the moral law. Bataille, by contrast, integrates these two realms, and in the overlap is the possibility of sacrifice made meaningful.

source
http://www.ferrum.edu/philosophy/david.htm

Potter Box -Decision Making Model

SITUATION

Two ten-year-olds go to trial for kidnapping and brutally murdering two-year-old Jason Bugler

VALUES

British Television: honor the court restrictions against reporting juvenile names

U.S. Newspaper: do not suppress public information

PRINCIPLE

British Television: other-regarding care

U.S. Newspaper: truthtelling is categorical imperative

LOYALTIES

British Television: to juvenile defendants and their families

U.S. Newspaper: to general readership

JUDGMENT

British Television: withhold broadcasting


source
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:jxnjZxD85woJ:myweb.arbor.edu/rwoods/Media_Ethics7/intro.htm.ppt+decision+making+model+potter+box&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=my&client=firefox-a
U.S. Newspaper: publish names and details

Beyond the Veil of Ignorance

John Rawls proposed a method, which he called the veil of ignorance, for determining which social customs were just and which were unjust. The veil of ignorance criterion is as follows: a rule is just if everyone would agree to it given that they were made ignorant of their position in society. That is, the just society would be chosen by people who had set aside considerations of their own gender, wealth, race, parentage, ect. Ideally this rule eliminates personal bias from the choice and thus guarantees the fairness of rules.

However, even behind the veil of ignorance there will not be consensus as to which rules are best, throwing into question the assumption that the veil of ignorance would reveal the unique best set of rules, which is one of the reasons Rawls seem to favor it. For example consider two possible societies, one in which the men are rich and the woman are poor, and another in which everyone is moderately wealthy. Even without knowing their gender some people would prefer the unequal society. This is because individuals have different tolerances to risk. Some would consider the chance to be rich worth the risk of being poor, while others would prefer the security of the society that makes everyone equally wealthy. Likewise preferences such as the health of the environment under such a society could interfere with the consensus.

One might suppose that we could fix this problem by asking that people behind the veil be ignorant of their preferences, which would include their tolerance for risk, as well as their social position. However once preferences are discarded it is meaningless to ask people to make a choice. For example consider two possible rules. Rule one is that people must walk to destinations within a mile, and rule two is that people must drive to all destinations. Rule one is safer and friendlier to the environment, while rule two is more efficient. Without preferences however those behind the veil have no reason to pick either of these rules, and so the idea of them being able to decide on any society seems impossible, after all we have even asked them to give up preferences such as “I want to be happy”.

There is a way to achieve the same basic result of the veil of ignorance without making people put aside their preferences. I call it the cut-first-choose-last rule, because it is based on the method for forcing children to divide dessert among each other fairly; the person who cuts the dessert into pieces gets to choose their piece last. When we apply this idea to picking societies we would say that a just society is one which a rational person would create even if they got to pick the position they were born into last. This implies that societies in which men are wealthy and women are poor are unjust, because no one would rationally choose such a society under the proposed rule, for if they did the first people to pick their roles in society would choose to be men, and by the time the designer was to pick their role they would be forced to be improvised.

From the veil of ignorance argument John Rawls concluded that just societies are those in which everyone has equal opportunities, except where unequal opportunities benefit everyone. This principle still holds under the cut-first-choose-last rule. For example consider a society of 4 people where the wealth is distributed in this fashion: $10, $10, $10, $10, and one in which the wealth is distributed in this fashion: $20, $11, $11, $11. The rational person would still choose the second society, which Rawls would consider just, because even though they know that they won’t receive the $20 role they would rather have $11 than $10.

There as still some oddities even with the cut-first-choose-last rule that arise because of different preferences, not towards risk, but towards what is valued. For example some might pick a society in which wealth is distributed as: $9, $9, $9, $9 if the environment was healthier, while others care less about the environment and would simply pick the society that made them richer. John Rawls conclusions are also impacted by this fact, because he argued that from the veil of ignorance that a just society is one in which there was maximal liberty. Because of the variation of preferences however the cut-first-choose-last rule does not yield this result, for the preference for liberty is not universal, some may very well prefer a society in which they are more secure.

I do not believe that this lack of a consensus is failure of the cut-first-choose-last rule; it simply shows that there are a wide variety of societies which are maximally just. One would have to choose among these societies using other criteria, not those of justice or fairness.

source
http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/05/05/beyond-the-veil-of-ignorance/

Aristotle's Golden Mean Classic Moral Theory from the Nicomachean Ethics Read more: "Aristotle's Golden Mean: Classic Moral Theory from the Nicomache

The theory of the mean is one of Aristotle's best-known pieces of ethical thinking. It can be found in his book The Nicomachean Ethics. It is at once strikingly simple and fiendishly difficult. In a nutshell, Aristotle said that virtues are a point of moderation between two opposite vices. For instance, the virtue courage lies between the two vices of cowardice and recklessness. Recklessness is too much confidence and not enough fear, cowardice is too much fear and not enough confidence, courage is just the right amount of both.

This can be expanded to most virtues and vices. Some other means that Aristotle laid out were temperance (or self-control), which lies between self-indulgence and a lack of sensitivity to your own needs, and modesty which is between bashfulness and vanity.
Pre-Christian Virtues

Some of the “virtues” may seem a bit odd to those brought up with a post-Christian worldview. Aristotle thinks you should have the “right amount” of pride, depending on your worth, and that humility is a deficiency of proper pride, and therefore a vice. He also thinks you should feel anger to the right extent – too little anger when someone dents your car and you don't have a proper respect for either your possessions or your own dignity.

As you may have noticed, the mean is about the proper emotional response to situations, rather than the proper actions. For Aristotle, virtue came from character. It is the character that makes you do the good deeds that is virtuous, not the deeds themselves. This school of moral thought is still around today and is called Virtue Ethics.
How to Find the Mean

There are some problems to get over if you're thinking of living your life according to the Golden Mean, however. Firstly, how do you find the mean? Aristotle makes it clear that he is not talking about a mathematical middle, but the perfect intermediate point with regard to ourselves. To adapt an example Aristotle gives, if a baby only needs a teacupful of food each day to thrive, and a fully grown adult needs three square meals, that doesn't mean the ideal amount is halfway in between. If you're old enough to be reading this, you probably need an amount a lot closer to the three square meals than the teacup.

source
http://western-philosophy.suite101.com/article.cfm/aristotles_golden_mean#ixzz0GgK79GOd&A