World War Ill Will.
A Coalition of the Ill and Weak Willing.
***14th May, Thursday - Francis O’Neill - Psyops of the New World Order***
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The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant speaks about a ‘contradiction of ideas’ in his moral philosophy. This is when we follow a maxim, but when it is taken to its logical conclusion it undermines the purpose it was supposed to fulfil.
Kant believed that for a moral maxim to be workable, then it had to be applicable at all times and all places. He called this the Categorical Imperative. A morality that could not be followed by all people in all instances throughout time and space was one that introduced relativism to all moral concepts, a philosophical development that the rigorous and tidy Kant devoted the latter part of his life trying to refute.
An individual would take a moral maxim and put it through the Categorical Imperative, a thought experiment, which would then be able to conclude whether this moral rule was one that was ‘rational’. For instance, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is a possible maxim which could be applied to all times and places. There is no particular contradiction in it, so it would be a moral rule to follow.
However, if there was a maxim such as ‘Do whatever it takes’ and we take such a one, applying it to an exam, then it is easy to imagine ambitious students cheating in the exam to pass. Furthermore, it is not at all impossible to conceive a majority or even nearly all students attempting some sort of clandestine manoeuvre to achieve their desired grade, or, perhaps the educator assisting – one whose pay, position and status may be dependent on passes. (In Scotland, not a great deal of imagination is required as the classroom based National qualifications are institutionally corrupt and there is pressure for all children to attain them.)
The problem, of course, is that if a sizable minority, majority or everybody cheats in an exam, then the object attained becomes less valuable. The reason for the examination is undone by the fact that it cannot be relied upon to demonstrate its claim. Kant would call this a Contradiction of Ideas since following the maxim would undermine the intent of the protagonist.
Another objection to a maxim might be a Contradiction of Actions. This is when the maxim applied results in actions that are seriously disadvantageous to the person carrying it out. A man who says, ‘Live for myself’, and adopts this as law for his own affairs can live a happy and possibly not an immoral life. Yet, when the day comes upon that, old and frail, he is committed to the nursing home by children of similar bent, there is very little onus on them or the staff in his new environment to do anything out the way of their own interests for him. In the home, there’d be no care, certainly none that was beyond the remit of the job, and so this cold, functional world would be the result of his previous motto. Would he now like the consequences of his maxim?
Covid taught us something: the maxims we are following, and, at a guess, it would seem to be ones like ‘Keep your head down’, ‘Please yourself’ and ‘Follow your Self-Interest’, across society and in our institutions are making an enemy of our future.
Take as an illustration the NHS, which was a complete disgrace during Covid, failing to adhere to the basic tenets of medical ethics or perform professional due diligence on the vaccines, in not just one individual or body but across all its hundreds of thousands of staff and multitude of health boards and subsidiary bodies, it adopted the maxims of ‘obedience without thought is good’ and ‘protecting patients is detrimental’.
Obviously, there is a Contradiction of Ideas here and we do not have to speculate on subservient behaviour producing morally catastrophic outcomes when the contemporary world offers multiple examples occurring at present. The Contradiction of Action too is clear: one day most NHS workers will need medical attention, will they wish that others see their rights as easily disposable as they did?
Using Kant’s concepts accurately, it should have been relatively easy to avoid the moral disasters of recent years, and, to some extent, although the ideas are framed in seemingly technical language, most people can understand the ideas when related in everyday language. In fact, they regularly apply them, usually. It does not require hundreds of pages of Kant to explain that ethics should be universal and that narrow self-interest rebounds on the unfeeling individual at some point.
As people are aware, then we have to ask what is missing in their personal worldview and moral make-up? They are not ignorant of the language of ethics since even the Covid propaganda was couched in moral terms and became a ‘moral’ argument about ‘doing the right thing for others’. And most people have prior experience of acting morally. What other aspect of morality, critical to its understanding and acting upon its precepts, are we missing?
There is a principle of Kant’s moral philosophy that is the foundation stone of the entire structure. Lacking this, the complexity and rationality of Kant’s system crumbles because it lacks the force to maintain it or execute its requirements. Ironically, it resides in the world of Feeling, an area where Kant seldom ventures due to the ‘pure’ rationality of his project.
Without an emotional bedrock to build upon that aspires to a set of ideals and infuses them with actions, a person’s moral philosophy, no matter how many times articulated, is a sham; because it then rests upon either Interest or Fear. And in my experience, it is often Interest that rules until unseated by its superior in feeling – Fear.
Good Will is fundamental to Kant’s moral philosophy. Unless an individual is disposed to do good, wants to do good, is passionate about doing good, then all of the intricate reasonings and wide-reaching consequences of Kant’s ideas are reduced to little more than formulaic and linguistic quibbles that would put a barrack’s room lawyer to shame. (Or just a lawyer, who as a collective were equally shameful during Covid: laws were overthrown without a peep, rights ignored, crimes committed; doubtless the legal fraternity operated under the same such dismal maxims as the medical profession.)
An alien visitor to this planet, having arrived five minutes ago, might be impressed by how attentive we are to establishing and maintaining moral norms. ‘Rights’ this, ‘Rights’ that, what is the right thing to be doing, what is the wrong thing, our public discourse is full to overflowing of this language, in fact, it never shuts up about it: not every one can be an expert or know what they’re talking about, but they can opine on morality, endlessly.
Nonetheless, the same alien visitor, after a few minutes, would start to discern that actions seem to fall a long way short of words. That the moralistic formulations that guides us are simply empty, easily dropped or manipulated to mean something else other than originally intended; that behind al the noise there is an Ill Will acting under many of these ‘moral’ subterfuges, promoting in the lower steps of the social pyramid their own selfish aims, and at the capstone, mass destruction across the planet, whilst planning more of it. We are in the grip of Ill Willed people.
However, part of the undiagnosed problem is that the Many in whom it is assumed Good Will exists should be more accurately described as Weak Willed, helping no one for good and obstructing no one who intends bad. The feeble desires that wish for better outcomes but excite no steps towards them make these individuals become unwitting co-conspirators with the genuinely malevolent, putting us into a situation where many commentators are predicting economic collapse and a few are sounding the warning that there is a month of oil left for Europe and then its famine.
Under such circumstances, what will be our moral philosophy then?
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