Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
brought to you by Ron Yezzi
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
© Copyright 1986, 1994, 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi
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(Author's Note: The account below, with slight modifications, is taken from Ron Yezzi, Philosophical Problems: The Good Life (Mankato: G. Bruno & Co., 1994), pp. 148-150.)
Topics
Kant and Aristotle
Plato and The Divided Line
Controversies: Some Objections and Possible Replies
Creative Excursions
Sources
Positive Answer:
Reason
The life of reason described under Rationalism with respect to the good life includes accounts of reason as a method of acquiring ethical knowledge. Those accounts will not be repeated here. Since they are presupposed in what follows however, readers are encouraged to cover that section again before proceeding. Here we concentrate on a single, specific issue, namely, the relation of reason to experience—dealing with Aristotle and Kant very briefly and then Plato in a bit more detail.
Kant and Aristotle
For Immanuel Kant, moral judgments must be based upon the moral law arrived at and analyzed according to reason itself, independently of practical experience in the world. Although experience may be relevant in making us aware of a situation that calls for a moral judgment, experience should not have any role in making the moral judgment. For example, we would never invoke the categorical imperative to reject lying unless our experience presented us with situations where lying is a possibility; in making the moral judgment not to lie however, we use reason itself without reference to experience. This denial of a role to experience results, we recall, from Kant's insistence that morality must be based upon principles that are universal and necessary—and affected not at all by the varying conditions of experience. Lying is wrong to a rational person simply because it contradicts the meaning of communication itself. That ends the matter. For Kant, those experiential situations where persons often try to justify lying—such as saving a life, preventing depression, or avoiding embarrassment and humiliation—have nothing to do with making a moral judgment.
Aristotle interprets the moral situation quite differently. While he regards reason as being essential to making sound moral judgments about proposed actions, he means reason tempered by the practical experiences of life. Thus, determining the mean for moral virtue requires a person of practical wisdom, and young people are not likely to make sound moral judgments because of their inexperience with the actions of life. Since experience is fundamental to sound moral judgments, Aristotle makes some allowance for moral judgments changing to meet changed circumstances—an approach adamantly rejected by Kant who wants moral rules to hold without exception and without allowances for particular circumstances.
Plato and The Divided Line
Near the end of Book VI of The Republic, Plato lays out The Divided Line to chart the process of transcending experience to arrive at ethical truth: For Plato, we all grow up in a world of experience that we must transcend through pure reason to arrive at true ethical knowledge, represented at its highest stage by the Form of the Good.