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Reflection on kant categorical imperatives
Reflection on kant categorical imperatives
Reflection on kant categorical imperatives
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Alan Soble counters the large dilemmas presented by Immanuel Kant in his article “Sexual Use and What to Do about It”. Soble makes very strong points when he is both agreeing and disagreeing with Kant in his article. The “sex problem” that is discussed by philosophers is a battle of what makes sex immoral and harmful to humanity. The root of the objectification of the body, and luring someone under false pretenses, into sexual activity is viewed as harmful to both the person doing the objectifying and the person being objectified. Soble outlines “Kant’s sex problem” and Kant’s solution, Soble also gives his own solutions, and in learning both I feel the solution is in externalism.
Immanuel Kant defines his second formulation of the Categorical Imperative as knowing the value of a person. It is demeaning to use a person without his or her consent for self-gratification, especially sexually. Kant describes this as using a person simply to serve a means rather than an end, simply put rather than being a concrete loving act with the end of creating new life sex treated as only “scratching an itch”. The idea that Kant, “must take on the other’s ends for their own sake, not because that is an effective way to advance my goals in using the other,” is a way of saying that a man must care enough about the other person treat them as fairly and justly as he wants to be treated (Soble 228). To Soble the “Kantian sex problem” is at the root rather or not all of Kant’s requirements can be met at all in sexual activity¬¬. As Kant lays out all that goes into the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative he describes taking on one another’s ends, but also what it means to make a person simply an end to one’s own needs.
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...sexual act is can be looked at as similar to today’s society. The idea of sexual desire being a mutually entered into activity as part of marriage is the ideal, along with the consenting unconnected use of one another for sex. Soble also presents valuable solutions to “Kant’s sexual problem”, however his solutions are simply ideas. There is no way to wholly reform the sexual world. There will always be people out there who let their sexual desire over power their mind and morals.
Works Cited
Soble, Alan. “Sexual Use and What to Do about It: Internalist and Externalist Sexual Ethics.” The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings. Ed. Alan Soble. Fourth ed. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littefield, 2002. 225-58. Print.
Stacey, Matthew. "Kant on Sex and Marriage: What Kant Should Have Said." Thesis. University of Guelph, 2009. Matthew Stacey, 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
In the article “An Anthropological Look at Human Sexuality” the authors, Patrick Gray and Linda Wolfe speak about how societies look at human sexuality. The core concept of anthology is the idea of culture, the systems of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors people acquire as a member of society. The authors give an in depth analysis on how human sexuality is looked at in all different situations.
While alleged sex addictions have existed for many years, they have only recently been accepted as valid excuses for sexual deviancy. Attitudes toward sex addiction in the past offer a stark contrast to how it is viewed today, as the constantly medicalizing society insists on putting everything under the technical microscope. Sex addiction is commonly associated with a person’s inability to control his sexual behavior, implying an abnormally high sex drive and obsession with sex which have negative effects on his personal life (MedicineNet 2007, 1). Rather than breaking down the science behind the disorder, a customary practice in today’s medicalized society, older attitudes towards sex addiction placed it under the same light as alcoholism, where a lack of control and unwillin...
...am Victorian society, sexual liberalism transformed the ways in which people arranged their private lives. Shifting from a Victorian environment of production, separate sexual spheres, and the relegation of any illicit extramarital sex to an underworld of vice, the modern era found itself in a new landscape of consumerism, modernism and inverted sexual stereotypes. Sexuality was now being discussed, systemized, controlled, and made an object of scientific study and popular discourse. Late nineteenth-century views on "natural" gender and sexuality, with their attendant stereotypes about proper gender roles and proper desires, lingered long into the twentieth century and continue, somewhat fitfully, to inform the world in which we live. It is against this cultural and political horizon that an understanding of sexuality in the modern era needs to be contextualized.
Essay #1: Sexual Politics It has been said that “Society has always defined for us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, what a man should be like and what a woman should be like, and these traditional definitions of gender roles have limited and even harmed individuals”. The theme of sexual politics comes to mind in this quote. One can define sexual politics as the relationship of the sexes, male and female, regarding power. Society’s definition of this can limit an individual in their gender role and restrain a person from being themselves.
Immanuel Kant is a popular modern day philosopher. He was a modest and humble man of his time. He never left his hometown, never married and never strayed from his schedule. Kant may come off as boring, while he was an introvert but he had a great amount to offer. His thoughts and concepts from the 1700s are still observed today. His most recognized work is from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Here Kant expresses his idea of ‘The Good Will’ and the ‘Categorical Imperative’.
Sex has moved away from the patriarchal conception of it where the rape victims claim to have exclusive rights, which has replaced Kantian conceptions in ideas of sexual objectification, and the dominance of consent in distinguishing between the acceptable and unacceptable morality. It is true that humans have to engage in sexual acts for procreation. Kant’s own solution to the sexual problem is that sexual activity is permissible only in the context of heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong marriage. In this case, Kant’s solution to the problem is a thick externalism that is minimalist. Howard Williams made a shrewd observation on Kant’s solution: that the most significant of Kant’s argument involves treating himself and his partners as objects.
The proper expression of human sexuality is a abiding question for the world of sexual ethics. There has never been a society that has not reflected upon and prescribed rules and regulations for this powerful and yet mysterious dimension of personhood; and there has seemingly never been a social order in which sexuality has not breached the boundaries established for it. On the surface scripture and much of the Christian response to sexuality appears to be establishing rules and regulations which attempt to limit sexual behavior until the ‘appropriate’ time or stage in ones life. Though this is a narrow understanding of sexual ethics– instead the goal of sexual ethics should be in the importance of how we relate ourselves and desires to others. Specifically, the relation between God : Humanity, and Humanity : Humanity.
Casual sex is very prevalent in today’s society. Raja Halwani writes that for casual sex to be morally permissible it must meet certain conditions. In this essay I will use the writing “Virtue Ethics, Casual Sex, and Objectification” written by Raja Halwani, to prove that most cases of casual sex are not morally permissible.
In this paper I will be looking at Goldman’s definition of sexual desire and discussing why it may be too broad of a definition. I will also suggest ways in which Goldman’s definition could be improved with a little specificity.
Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
When women’s desires are less worthy of concern or not worthy of concern at all, it becomes evident that the hookup culture promotes women being used as a tool or a means to an end for male satisfaction. According to the Kantian moral theory, the culture is immoral because the woman is no longer being respected. The ambiguity of the hookup culture couple with societal effects of inegalitarian porn, according to Eaton’s “A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminist” and power imbalances in the sexes creates a culture that fosters rape. Women are placed in predicaments where they have to give in to pushy, coercive behavior by men who want to go further than the women intends to. Even if a woman feels liberated by participating in the hookup culture, that doesn’t mean she wants to go all the way, with every partner, every time. The objectification of women and rape are two serious and harmful effects of the hookup culture.
Through my readings, I have come to realize that masturbation has been an issue which many educated philosophers have strongly focused on. Many people have questioned whether or not masturbation is considered moral or immoral. Although most philosophers saw masturbation under a foul light, Alan Soble was able to prove that masturbation was not completely corrupt.
... decades ago. This book is one that will allow the reader to view many aspects of sexuality from a social standpoint, and apply it to certain social attitudes in our society today, these attitudes can range from the acceptance of lesbian and gays, and the common sight of sex before marriage and women equality. The new era of sexuality has taken a definite "transformation" as Giddens puts it, and as a society we are living in the world of change in which we must adapt, by accepting our society as a changing society, and not be naive and think all the rules of sexuality from our parents time our still in existence now.
The issues of sexual ethics in relation to morality and perversion have been addressed in depth by each of the gentleman at this table. Sexual activity as described by Solomon and Nagle is comprised of a moral standard and ‘naturalness’ aspect. So, in claiming an act is perverted we must first examine it through a moral framework and understand how this interacts with the ‘naturalness’ of a particular act. Solomon makes the distinction as follows “Perversion is an insidious concept…To describe an activity as perverse is not yet a full blown moral condemnation, for it need not entail that one ought not to indulge in such activities.” Along with the examination of the nature of an act, there must be clear justification as to why sexual acts deserve special separate ethical principles. The question arises: does an act simply due to its sexual nature deserve a separate form of moral inquisition than other acts that occur in nature? In this essay I shall argue that perversion and immorality are not mutually exclusive. By this I mean that a sexual act that is, by my definition, immoral must also be perverted. It is also my contention that if an act is perverted we must also define it as immoral. This second part of the argument is contrary to what many of you have claimed. At the outset of this paper I would also like to state my support of Thomas Nagel’s argument holding that the connection between sex and reproduction has no bearing on sexual perversion. (Nagel 105)
...sophy of Sex”, describes Immanuel Kant as a “metaphysical sexual pessimist” as sexual activity for Kant shows the individual as an “object of appetite” (Soble 5). The fact that an act is sexual does not change the moral standards that it must adhere to, and thus allows acts regarded as perverted in the socio-cultural norms not to be regarded as immoral.