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    We are forbidden from adopting the maxim of refusing to d... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    We are forbidden from adopting the maxim of refusing to develop any of our own natural talents.

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics
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    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Rationality requires conformity to hypothetical imperatives, so rational agents will the necessary and available means to any ends they will.
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    • 2.We must will our own happiness as an end.
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    • 3.Developed talents are necessary means to achieving happiness.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.The Formula of Universal Law generates duties only when a maxim's universalization produces a logical contradiction, not merely a prudential one.
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    • 2.The universalization of 'develop no talents' produces no logical contradiction—a world of idle rational beings is coherently conceivable.
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    • 3.Therefore, the duty to develop talents cannot be derived from the categorical imperative and at most reflects a contingent prudential counsel.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Bernard Williams argues that a life structured around impartial rational demands systematically alienates agents from their ground projects and personal commitments.
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    • 2.Refusing to develop certain talents may constitute a constitutive feature of an agent's integrity and authentic self-conception, not a moral failure.
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    • 3.Kant's subsumption of talent-development under universal rational willing illicitly imposes an external normative standard on what is properly a first-personal question of how to live.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Related

    Bernard Williams argues that a life structured around impartial rational demands...Developed talents are necessary means to achieving happiness.Kant's subsumption of talent-development under universal rational willing illici...Rationality requires conformity to hypothetical imperatives, so rational agents ...
    +7 moreShow less
    Refusing to develop certain talents may constitute a constitutive feature of an ...Since we will the necessary and available means to our ends, we are rationally c...The Formula of Universal Law generates duties only when a maxim's universalizati...The universalization of 'develop no talents' produces no logical contradiction—a...Therefore, the duty to develop talents cannot be derived from the categorical im...We cannot will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop any talents...We must will our own happiness as an end.

    Similar

    One cannot rationally will a maxim of refusing to develop any of one's...86%All that is required to show that one cannot will a talentless world i...79%We cannot will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop a...78%The stronger claim that one rationally wills that all talents be devel...77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: kant-moral
    View source passageHide passage
    Finally, Kant’s examples come on the heels of defending the position that rationality requires conformity to hypothetical imperatives. Thus, we should assume that, necessarily, rational agents will the necessary and available means to any ends that they will. And once we add this to the assumptions that we must will our own happiness as an end, and that developed talents are necessary means to achieving that end, it follows that we cannot rationally will that a world come about in which it is a
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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