I certainly would not wish to be perceived as defending the attempt to refute someone by misrepresenting his views. (Hence my delay in answering Mr. Barnes’ and Citizen Rat’s points in other threads—I often like to understand the total context, as much as time permits, behind another person’s opinions before answering, and in these cases it involves studying all their past posts and becoming better acquainted with the views of Karl R. Popper.)

But Ayn Rand was not writing a treatise refuting Kant. She was discussing his theories in terms of her already-worked-out philosophy. She was offering a summation of how her philosophy, if one accepts it, would apply to the topic of Kant.

Philosophers often build systems first, then defend them. It has been years since I studied philosophy academically, but I think of G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica, Spinoza’s Ethics, Leibniz’ theory of the monads, Descartes’ Discourse on Method. If I remember correctly, they built up their systems with little reference to other philosophers’ theories. The same goes for all the modern moral theorists who are continually refuting each other in the journals.

Let me discuss in detail the kind of thing I am thinking of when I say that Rand’s discussion of Kant is in terms of her own views, and perhaps it will not be viewed quite so negatively. I will quote Tara Smith: “In the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant contends that ‘all morals concepts have their seat and origin entirely a priori in reason.’ … there are certain things a person simply must do … it is our rationality that obligates us.’” Certainly, Kant says “rationality.” But reading him more, we see that by this term he means roughly the categorical imperative—a sense of duty. According to one commentator, “the categorical imperative is best seen not as a source of moral principles, but as a test of those principles we already have.” Now, to Ayn Rand, “reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.” That is, in reality, in fact, and contrary to Kant, there is no reasoning “a priori.” Rand holds that therefore, if one does not judge one’s action by reason in her sense, the only possible alternative in reality is to coast on one’s emotions (which are the result of the thinking what has done or failed to do). That leads you emotionally to the prevalent morality of your culture (likely the morality of dutiful altruism).

That is basically why I find Rand’s view as per Mr. Younkins’ statement “Kant assigns one’s emotions the power to know the metaphysically superior ‘unknowable’ noumenal world by indefinable means that he termed ‘pure reason’” a fair statement of the reality despite Kant’s rejection of the term “emotions.” Now, if I were not convinced of the truth of Rand’s characterization of the relation of reason and emotion, I would not accept this seemingly facile idea. But I am.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 4/13, 5:52pm)

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 4/13, 6:06pm)

Joe: “Like if she says capitalism is good, you can't just change the definition of capitalism to be "the system of killing babies and destroying the environment"?”

I agree, and as you say, it’s quite proper to draw out the implications of any philosophical position to highlight any inconsistencies, and also to show a better interpretation of the topic under discussion. What is unacceptable is to speculate, for instance, that Kant considered man’s conceptual faculty to be a distorting mechanism, or that only knowledge independent of perception is valid, when he made no such claims. Similarly, it’s fine to deny a priori knowledge, but it’s not acceptable to then speculate that Kant was “really’ appealing to emotion under the guise of a priori knowledge.

By all means critique Kant. Unfortunately, as Daniel has pointed out, doing so from a Randian perspective can only be faulty, since she misread him so badly.

Brendan

"I have never been able to understand how....(Kant) can be both a deontologist and a saver of altruism"