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    If rationality required aiming at developing all of one's... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
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    If rationality required aiming at developing all of one's talents, the further steps of the Categorical Imperative procedure would be unnecessary to show that refusing to develop talents is immoral

    Virtue Ethics
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's Formula of Universal Law tests the form of maxims, not merely the rationality of individual volitions, making it irreducible to consistency requirements.
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    • 2.Christine Korsgaard argues that universalizability adds a distinctly social dimension—the standpoint of humanity—that bare rationality constraints on individuals cannot supply.
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    • 3.An agent could irrationally neglect talents while still producing a universalizable maxim, showing the two tests track different normative failures.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rationality requirements in Kant are hypothetical unless grounded in the categorical demand that humanity be treated as an end, per the Formula of Humanity.
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    • 2.Even if developing talents were rationally required, the CI procedure is needed to determine which talents, to what degree, and under what social conditions—questions bare rationality cannot resolve.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.If, insofar as we are rational, we must will to develop capacities, then it is by that very fact irrational not to do so
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    • 2.Showing an action to be irrational on its own would suffice to condemn it without needing the universalizability test
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Key Terms

    Immoral(in ethics)
    Going against what is morally right or ethical; doing something that violates accepted standards of good behavior.
    Talents (in philosophical context)(in discussions of moral duty)
    Natural abilities, skills, or capacities that a person has or could develop, like intelligence, creativity, or physical abilities.
    categorical imperative(Groundwork, 4.421, 429)
    The moral law requiring that one will the maxim of an action as a universal law (removing any self-preference) and treat humanity in any person always as an end and never merely as a means
    rationality(Traditional conception being challenged by epistemic relativists)
    A cognitive virtue and hallmark of the scientific method, intimately tied to requirements of consistency, justification, warrant, and evidence for beliefs.

    Related

    An agent could irrationally neglect talents while still producing a universaliza...Christine Korsgaard argues that universalizability adds a distinctly social dime...Even if developing talents were rationally required, the CI procedure is needed ...If, insofar as we are rational, we must will to develop capacities, then it is b...
    +3 moreShow less
    Kant's Formula of Universal Law tests the form of maxims, not merely the rationa...Rationality requirements in Kant are hypothetical unless grounded in the categor...

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: kant-moral
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    By contrast with the maxim of the lying promise, we can easily conceive of adopting a maxim of refusing to develop any of our talents in a world in which that maxim is a universal law of nature. It would undoubtedly be a world more primitive than our own, but pursuing such a policy is still conceivable in it. However, it is not, Kant argues, possible to rationally will this maxim in such a world. The argument for why this is so, however, is not obvious, and some of Kant’s thinking seems hardly c
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Showing an action to be irrational on its own would suffice to condemn it withou...

    Similar

    Kant's argument that full rationality requires willing the development...87%Kant's argument only needs the weaker claim that rationality requires ...85%The stronger claim that one rationally wills that all talents be devel...84%All that is required to show that one cannot will a talentless world i...83%
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit