Doing a Kant (was Re: Rhetorical Gestures)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Oct 20 21:53:28 PDT 1999



>> Ken:
>> >that when one acts in the service of God, or country, or
>> >capital ... we risk the highest degree of authoritarianism.
>> >We can only be responsible for things when we acknowledge
>> >their incompleteness, their failure.
>
>> What if by acknowledging 'failure,' 'incompleteness,'
>etc., you are acting 'in the service of God, or country, or
>capital' & doing so more effectively than otherwise? In
>any case, there is no moral principle that prevents what
>you call 'authoritarianism.'
>
>For Lacan, there is no Other of the Other.

Appeal to authority?


>Kant's categorical imperative, as it has
>been re-read by the Slovene Lacanian School, forbids any
>and all kinds of authoritarianism - systematically.

Kant says in _The Metaphysics of Morals_: "The law of punishment is a categorical imperative, and woe to him who crawls through the windings of eudaemonism in order to discover something that releases the criminal from punishment or even reduces its amount by the advantage it promises...".


>As for moral principles, no, there is no
>*substantial* moral principle that prevents
>authoritarianism. However, any tautological or *empty*
>principle will.

The form of the categorical imperative expresses the principle of exchanging 'equivalent for equivalent,' in other words, bourgeois normalcy; and bourgeois normalcy demands the authoritarian control of the relative surplus population. Meanings lie in forms, not just in content.

In any case, no moral principle, full or empty, can prevent what you call 'authoritarianism.' If anything, trying to apply a moral principle consistently in a world riven by contradictions & antagonisms is likely to encourage the abuse of power.

Yoshie



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