Excerpts from Critique of Judgment (in Criticism: Major Statements); "What is Enlightenment?"
In this brief excerpt from the Critique of Judgment, Kant outlines his "Three Sorts of Liking," which consist of the agreeable ("what the senses like in sensation," individual gratification, "conditioned pathologically by stimuli"), the beautiful (that which we like in spite of its purposelessness, or lack of utilitarian function), and the good ("what, by means of reason, we like through its mere concept"; that which "we like...for its own sake"; "a pure practical liking that is determined not just by the presentation of the object but also by the presentation of the subject's connection with the existence of the object"). He speaks of these likings in terms of "taste," which, at least in terms of deciding the beautiful, is not logical "cognitive judgment," but rather a wholly subjective response to an object's aesthetic element. Thus, Kant sees the appreciation of art as independent of one's reason, which has always been considered a kind of objective ideal, supposedly operating consistently and identically in any number of different 'reasonable' persons.
In determining these elements, Kant argues that "only the liking involved in taste for the beautiful is disinterested and free." Conversely, he says, the determination of the agreeable involves an obvious "interest" on the part of the subject (it is self-interest and gratification, after all, which makes something agreeable). Similarly, that which is considered good "always contains the concept of a purpose" and therefore "contains some interest or other." In other words, liking the good involves liking both the object itself and its existence, or the fact that it is. This is contrasted by a determination of the beautiful, which has no purpose and could therefore exist or not without any practical consequence (whether of sense (agreeable) or of reason (good)).
Of course, any claim to disinterestedness ("pure disinterested liking") is problematic. While Kant at the very start clearly insists that the "determining basis" of all aesthetic judgments "cannot be other than subjective," he moves toward a position that privileges the "disinterestedness" one can achieve by eliminating ethical or practical considerations from one's aesthetic assessments. Footnote:
...taste, which is free, can manifest itself in manners, politeness, and propriety only where virtue, benevolence, and integrity, with the moral interest they involve, are absent.
Again, I may be reducing this and/or missing something fundamental, but isn't Kant arguing for some kind of objective subjectivity? Can one really eliminate all of one's practical or moral "interest"? And if so, can that actually be considered subjective at all?
From Criticism: Major Statements, 2000.
***
"What is Enlightenment?" begins with the following definition:
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!
Kant goes on to say that "Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives" (minors being those who do not emerge from their nonage, "which has become almost second nature" to the minor). His description of enlightenment is complimented by this fantastic elucidation of the minor (apropos of the preponderance of minors in America):
It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book [or TV show/channel/set] that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. (153)
I have no need to think, if only I can pay? Can you think of a more precise and concise amplification of commercialism and consumerism in the United States? Anyway, Kant goes on to describe the "guardians," who "make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them" (153). The "dogmas and formulas" inscribed by these self-interested guardians "are the fetters of an everlasting nonage" (153-4).
Kant then discusses complete freedom--the "freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters"--as a prerequisite for an emergence and sustained avoidance of nonage (enlightenment): "if it is given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable" (154, emphasis added). To illustrate this freedom (and/or the lack thereof), Kant uses three examples: the officer, the taxpaying citizen, and the pastor. He paints the related guardianship thusly:
Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" (154)
So far, so good. But here's where, in my opinion, the argument goes tats-up. Kant says that we "find restrictions [on freedom] everywhere," but that not all of these restrictions are "harmful to enlightenment"--that, in fact, some such restrictions are "innocent"--and even that certain restrictions actually advance enlightenment (154). Admittedly, this doesn't sound so bad. But the subsequent extensions of his examples (officer, taxes, pastor) seem to contradict his insistence on "freedom...in all matters," and indeed, even independent of this contradiction, seem somehow ridiculous.
In some affairs affecting the interest of the community a certain governmental mechanism is necessary in which some members of the community remain passive. This creates an artificial unanimity which will serve the fulfillment of public objectives...Here arguing is not permitted: one must obey. (154)
Since the enlightened ones are only "passive" participants in such matters, they are able to achieve and maintain the freedom of enlightenment individually, without being free, as it were, in the "universal community" or "world society of citizens" (154). While the enlightened ones are 'free' to publicly contest that which they find problematic in these 'public' policies/matters/issues, they are not permitted to make such fusses during the execution of their utilitarian function:
...it would be very unfortunate if an officer on duty and under orders from his superiors should want to criticize the appropriateness or utility of his orders. He must obey. But as a scholar he could not rightfully be prevented from taking notice of the mistakes in the military service and from submitting his views to his public for its judgment. (154)
Similarly,
The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes levied upon him...[but] this man does not violate the duties of a citizen if, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his objections to the impropriety or possible injustice of such levies. (154)
And
The pastor too is bound to preach to his congregation in accord with the doctrines of the church which he serves, for he was ordained on that condition. But as a scholar he has full freedom, indeed the obligation, to communicate to his public all his careful examined and constructive thoughts concerning errors in that doctrine and his proposals concerning improvement of religious dogma and church institutions. (154)
This is the kind of thing Emerson would be forced to read in hell. Kant's insistence on this kind of professional/dutiful cognitive dissonance chaps my ass a bit. He's basically insisting that we don't practice what we preach, don't walk the walk, etc, and that, when it comes to our duties as citizens and/or professionals, we should acquiesce to the appropriate guardians until those same guardians decide to make an official change to whatever it is we're acquiescing to. In these situations, one is
not free and ought not to be free, since he is carrying out the orders of others. On the other hand, as the scholar who speaks to his own public (the world) through his writings, [he] in the public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak for himself. (155)
But how much is the 'public' freedom really worth without the right to individual resistance of imposed injustices?
Kant further complicates his argument by imploring us later in the essay to actively resist any "unalterable doctrine" that attempts to "secure perpetual guardianship over all its members and through them over the people." Indeed, he writes that "[s]uch a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment from humanity, is simply null and void even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign power, by parliaments, and by the most solemn treaties" (155). How can one foment such a firm resistance and still acquiesce? Isn't rigid religious doctrine, for example, largely "unalterable," and does it not, at least in some way, "secure perpetual guardianship" for those who tend the flock, and those who tend those who tend the flock? Are sovereign powers, parliaments, and treaties the "others" whose "orders" we are to "obey"? Or is Kant saying that such contracts are "simply null and void" merely in the conversational, public sense, i.e., that they are "null and void" only in the arena of public discourse, and not in the practicable context of the arena they actually govern? Either way, I'm not down.
From Perspectives From the Past, Volume 2, 1998.
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know!
Kant goes on to say that "Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives" (minors being those who do not emerge from their nonage, "which has become almost second nature" to the minor). His description of enlightenment is complimented by this fantastic elucidation of the minor (apropos of the preponderance of minors in America):
It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book [or TV show/channel/set] that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. (153)
I have no need to think, if only I can pay? Can you think of a more precise and concise amplification of commercialism and consumerism in the United States? Anyway, Kant goes on to describe the "guardians," who "make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them" (153). The "dogmas and formulas" inscribed by these self-interested guardians "are the fetters of an everlasting nonage" (153-4).
Kant then discusses complete freedom--the "freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters"--as a prerequisite for an emergence and sustained avoidance of nonage (enlightenment): "if it is given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable" (154, emphasis added). To illustrate this freedom (and/or the lack thereof), Kant uses three examples: the officer, the taxpaying citizen, and the pastor. He paints the related guardianship thusly:
Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" (154)
So far, so good. But here's where, in my opinion, the argument goes tats-up. Kant says that we "find restrictions [on freedom] everywhere," but that not all of these restrictions are "harmful to enlightenment"--that, in fact, some such restrictions are "innocent"--and even that certain restrictions actually advance enlightenment (154). Admittedly, this doesn't sound so bad. But the subsequent extensions of his examples (officer, taxes, pastor) seem to contradict his insistence on "freedom...in all matters," and indeed, even independent of this contradiction, seem somehow ridiculous.
In some affairs affecting the interest of the community a certain governmental mechanism is necessary in which some members of the community remain passive. This creates an artificial unanimity which will serve the fulfillment of public objectives...Here arguing is not permitted: one must obey. (154)
Since the enlightened ones are only "passive" participants in such matters, they are able to achieve and maintain the freedom of enlightenment individually, without being free, as it were, in the "universal community" or "world society of citizens" (154). While the enlightened ones are 'free' to publicly contest that which they find problematic in these 'public' policies/matters/issues, they are not permitted to make such fusses during the execution of their utilitarian function:
...it would be very unfortunate if an officer on duty and under orders from his superiors should want to criticize the appropriateness or utility of his orders. He must obey. But as a scholar he could not rightfully be prevented from taking notice of the mistakes in the military service and from submitting his views to his public for its judgment. (154)
Similarly,
The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes levied upon him...[but] this man does not violate the duties of a citizen if, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his objections to the impropriety or possible injustice of such levies. (154)
And
The pastor too is bound to preach to his congregation in accord with the doctrines of the church which he serves, for he was ordained on that condition. But as a scholar he has full freedom, indeed the obligation, to communicate to his public all his careful examined and constructive thoughts concerning errors in that doctrine and his proposals concerning improvement of religious dogma and church institutions. (154)
This is the kind of thing Emerson would be forced to read in hell. Kant's insistence on this kind of professional/dutiful cognitive dissonance chaps my ass a bit. He's basically insisting that we don't practice what we preach, don't walk the walk, etc, and that, when it comes to our duties as citizens and/or professionals, we should acquiesce to the appropriate guardians until those same guardians decide to make an official change to whatever it is we're acquiescing to. In these situations, one is
not free and ought not to be free, since he is carrying out the orders of others. On the other hand, as the scholar who speaks to his own public (the world) through his writings, [he] in the public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak for himself. (155)
But how much is the 'public' freedom really worth without the right to individual resistance of imposed injustices?
Kant further complicates his argument by imploring us later in the essay to actively resist any "unalterable doctrine" that attempts to "secure perpetual guardianship over all its members and through them over the people." Indeed, he writes that "[s]uch a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment from humanity, is simply null and void even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign power, by parliaments, and by the most solemn treaties" (155). How can one foment such a firm resistance and still acquiesce? Isn't rigid religious doctrine, for example, largely "unalterable," and does it not, at least in some way, "secure perpetual guardianship" for those who tend the flock, and those who tend those who tend the flock? Are sovereign powers, parliaments, and treaties the "others" whose "orders" we are to "obey"? Or is Kant saying that such contracts are "simply null and void" merely in the conversational, public sense, i.e., that they are "null and void" only in the arena of public discourse, and not in the practicable context of the arena they actually govern? Either way, I'm not down.
From Perspectives From the Past, Volume 2, 1998.
