Thursday

Kant and the Hypocrisy of Morality.

I'd love to have a T-shirt that reads "I Survived Life" but I don't think that's possible, sadly we have to survive everything life throws at us save for the one thing that's responsible for it all in the first place. 

Don't get me wrong, there are ups and downs, but it'd be nice to get something from the experience is all...

Anyhow, I went to the library this last weekend in search of myself. Mainly I was looking to find anything that really spoke to me in terms of philosophy or ideologies; mostly I found books that piqued my interest but they did not ignite my passion.

One particular book I was reading was "Critique of Practical Reason" by Kant; in it, he states:

"If the determination of the will rests on the feelings of agreeableness or disagreeableness which [a person] expects from any cause, it is all the same to him through what kind of notion he is affected. The only thing he considers in making a choice is how great, how long-lasting, how easily obtained, and how often repeated this agreeableness is."

Bingo. See, I've been thinking about incentive and motivation for quite some time now. The old "carrot and stick" routine that society throws at us really doesn't interest me. In fact, just recently I realized I absolutely hate carrots and want nothing to do with them.

If my reward and/or incentive is not in my control, I'll invent one that is.

This all goes back to my beliefs on human beings and our immense power as individuals. The problem we have today (most of us) is that we allow other people to tell us what to do, what to want, and even what to think. 

I find this absurd, and ridiculous beyond measure.











The Hypocrisy of Morality.

Now I don't know who invented morality , but I've got a pretty good idea.

A long time ago, there was a great and powerful man who took what he wanted, did as he pleased, and none could stand up to him. 

The little people of the world decided that they had better take him down, lest they starve and die. So they banded together and killed the powerful man in a fit of self-defense one day while he was raiding their food stores.

Having achieved liberation, the little people rejoiced and relaxed and went about their lives. 

Then the little people began to use their power and influence to tell other people what to do. They told them how much they could eat, what roles they had in the tribe, and created all kinds of boundaries and myths to govern the even smaller people of the world.

Soon, instead of one man terrorizing the few, it was many terrorizing many more, and thus the cycle actually got worse instead of better.

The hypocrisy comes in if you consider that morality is based on a premise that goes something like this: 
"For the well-being of all, you must suffer."
That's basically it.

We (as a species) have traded quality for quantity. 

It makes no sense, further it is actually insane if you think about the ammount of suffering you actually increase every time you save some child from premature death in a third-world country (for example). The life full of disease and misery is allowed to continue, rather than end. In my opinion, that is known as torture. Especially when you add the satisfaction people get from their actions of charity. I'd almost suspect that we enjoy having people around who are "less-fortunate" than ourselves, simply so that we can see ourselves as the "fortunate" ones. It's quite sickening.

"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion." - Ecclesiastes 9:4

I disagree. Better to be a dead lion, because you KNOW that his life was AWESOME!

That's all for now folks, keep up with me if you can, or send me a question or comment.