Posted by alexandra_k on November 25, 2005, at 18:44:30
In reply to reverse objectification » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on November 24, 2005, at 23:07:43
> i don't know about Kant's rather absolutist (IMO) ethics.
Hmm.
I guess I prefer 'universal' to 'absolutist' but yeah, I guess...
I don't know much about ethics in general...
But I do remember having to read about Kant...For example...
If you are thinking about performing an act then you need to decide which maxim / law captures the act.
(Problems here with respect to how you DESCRIBE the maxim).
So... Suicide. Lets say you are deciding whether it would be morally acceptable to top yourself.
The relevant maxim is supposed to be UNIVERSAL (to apply to all people, situations, times etc)
So... One description of the relevant maxim may be...
'It is morally acceptable for someone to kill themself'.
Now...
The criterion...
COULD YOU WILL THE MAXIM TO BECOME A UNIVERSAL MORAL LAW???
(aka: could you will (intend) that everybody live by that maxim?)
Kant thought that IT WAS LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for someone to will that maxim to be a universal moral law because...
If everybody killed themself, then there wouldn't be any people left to act on the universal moral law.
And thus... He considers that the maxim would be CONTRADICTORY.
And... That is his criterion. If you can will the maxim to be a universal moral law (that everybody followed) WITHOUT CONTRADICTION then the maxim is a universal moral law. If you are led to contradiction then it can't be a universal moral law (so you SHOULDN'T do the act covered by the maxim because you (logically) CANNOT will the maxim to be a universal moral law.(Hence ethics is a matter of logic / reason, not of desire / emotion)
Works best for promise breaking IMO.
You can't will 'it is okay for people to break their promises' because if everybody broke their promises then there wouldn't be any such thing as promises. The very notion would self-distruct becasue of the contradiction...Thoguh... We can surely imagine cases where someone might need to be later than they promised in order to save a drowining person on the way to the meeting...
> I will say that the experience of depersonalization is one in which one views oneself as an object.Yes.
I have read something (a while back now) on borderline personality disorder... more specifically... on de-personalisation - objectification - and self injury.I remember reading about how in de-personalisation you don't see yourself as a 'subject' (of experience) rather you see yourself as an object.
But who is the 'yourself' that is being objectified?
It seems to be an experience of ones subjectivity being dissociated / split off from ones physical body. Typically ones experiecne of ones subjectivity embraces ones body. Sometimes... Ones experinece of ones subjectivity becomes narrowed. The boundary or limit of ones subjectivity becomes restricted. The physical body is seen as 'other' or 'foreign' or 'ego alien' or... as an object. The subjectivity has been split from being intimately associated with the body.
Self injury... One function of it can be to help 'ground' oneself back in ones body. The experience of bodily pain... Is hard for ones subjectivity to ignore... And thus self injury can function to enlarge the boundaries of the subjectivity to encompass the body once more...
(I'm not recommending that as a strategy. Though some people finding holding a cube of ice... A less injurous way of achieving the same thing).
But other people... Depersonalise in the face of bodily sensations of pain... Perhaps most interestingly... When the pain is a result of someone else treating their body as an object... Hmm...
> it makes relationships in the sexual asense impossible.
Hmm.
Yeah. I'm not sure what Kant was thinking... But what I took from the seminar seemed to be a little different to what most other people took.
Most people came away thinking that mututal objectification (between consenting parties) was just fine and Kant was a little too uptight.
I came away thinking that IT IS possible for sex to be an activity between two subjects rather than two objects.
And Kant just didn't quite manage to get himself to there...
Though I'm still thinking about the *object* / *mere object* thing...
> if one simply has a shaky sense of the first person, then the relations one can enter into with others are ambiguous at best. One has trouble relating to oneself. I suppose everyone has trouble with that, to some degree.
Yeah. I have trouble...
So... You think of other peoples bodies as 'containing' (or being intimately associated with) subjectivity...
But... You don't think of your body as 'containing' (or being intimately associated with) subjectivity...?
poster:alexandra_k
thread:579342
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20051031/msgs/582184.html