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    One cannot rationally will a maxim of refusing to develop... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    One cannot rationally will a maxim of refusing to develop any of one's talents as a universal law of nature

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Insofar as we are rational, we necessarily will that all of our talents and abilities be developed
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    • 2.Willing a world in which no talents are developed contradicts what we, as rational beings, already necessarily will
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rational agency requires only the capacity to set and pursue ends, not the development of any particular talent or set of talents.
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    • 2.A being can consistently will universal inaction on talent development while retaining the rational agency sufficient to form and act on maxims.
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    • 3.Kant's inference from 'rational beings have ends' to 'rational beings necessarily will talent development' conflates having ends with having this specific end.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Schiller and later Murdoch argue that moral worth can reside in cultivated receptivity and attention rather than active talent development.
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    • 2.A maxim of voluntary simplicity or contemplative withdrawal—universalized—need not undermine rational agency but may express a coherent, non-contradictory form of human flourishing.
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    • 3.The Formula of Universal Law tests logical and practical contradiction, but a world of universal contemplatives produces neither, undermining Kant's imperfect duty here.
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    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Related

    A being can consistently will universal inaction on talent development while ret...A maxim of voluntary simplicity or contemplative withdrawal—universalized—need n...Insofar as we are rational, we necessarily will that all of our talents and abil...Kant's inference from 'rational beings have ends' to 'rational beings necessaril...
    +4 moreShow less
    Rational agency requires only the capacity to set and pursue ends, not the devel...Schiller and later Murdoch argue that moral worth can reside in cultivated recep...The Formula of Universal Law tests logical and practical contradiction, but a wo...Willing a world in which no talents are developed contradicts what we, as ration...

    Similar

    We cannot will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop a...87%We are forbidden from adopting the maxim of refusing to develop any of...86%If it is inconceivable that one could sincerely act on a maxim in a wo...84%All that is required to show that one cannot will a talentless world i...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: kant-moral
    View source passageHide passage
    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

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit