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Cites

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1		-1: The Kantian subject is the opposite of abstract and embraces an embodied subject—universalizability is essential to mutual recognition of others. FARR:
2		-Arnold Farr (prof of phil @ UKentucky, focusing on German idealism, philosophy of race, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and liberation philosophy). “Can a Philosophy of Race Afford to Abandon the Kantian Categorical Imperative?” JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 33 No. 1, Spring 2002, 17–32.
3		-“One of the most popular criticisms of Kant’s moral philosophy is that it is too formalistic.13 That is, the universal nature of the categorical imperative leaves it devoid of content. Such a principle is useless since moral decisions are made by concrete individuals in a concrete, historical, and social situation. This type of criticism lies behind Lewis Gordon’s rejection of any attempt to ground an antiracist position on Kantian principles. The rejection of universal principles for the sake of emphasizing the historical embeddedness of the human agent is widespread in recent philosophy and social theory. I will argue here on Kantian grounds that although a distinction between the universal and the concrete is a valid distinction, the unity of the two is required for an understanding of human agency. The attack on Kantian formalism began with Hegel’s criticism of the Kantian philosophy.14 The list of contemporary theorists who follow Hegel’s line of criticism is far too long to deal with in the scope of this paper. Although these theorists may approach the problem of Kantian formalism from a variety of angles, the spirit of their criticism is basically the same: The universality of the categorical imperative is an abstraction from one’s empirical conditions. Kant is often accused of making the moral agent an abstract, empty, noumenal subject. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Kantian subject is an embodied, empirical, concrete subject. However, this concrete subject has a dual nature. Kant claims in the Critique of Pure Reason as well as in the Grounding that human beings have an intelligible and empirical character.15 It is impossible to understand and do justice to Kant’s moral theory without taking seriously the relation between these two characters. The very concept of morality is impossible without the tension between the two. By “empirical character” Kant simply means that we have a sensual nature. We are physical creatures with physical drives or desires. The very fact that I cannot simply satisfy my desires without considering the rightness or wrongness of my actions suggests that my empirical character must be held in check by something, or else I behave like a Freudian id. My empiri- cal character must be held in check by my intelligible character, which is the legislative activity of practical reason. It is through our intelligible character that we formulate principles that keep our empirical impulses in check. The categorical imperative is the supreme principle of morality that is constructed by the moral agent in his/her moment of self-transcendence. What I have called self-transcendence may be best explained in the following passage by Onora O’Neill: In restricting our maxims to those that meet the test of the categorical imperative we refuse to base our lives on maxims that necessarily make our own case an exception. The reason why a universilizability criterion is morally significant is that it makes our own case no special exception (G, IV, 404). In accepting the Categorical Imperative we accept the moral reality of other selves, and hence the possibility (not, note, the reality) of a moral community. The Formula of Universal Law enjoins no more than that we act only on maxims that are open to others also.16 O’Neill’s description of the universalizability criterion includes the notion of self-transcendence that I am working to explicate here to the extent that like self-transcendence, universalizable moral principles require that the individ- ual think beyond his or her own particular desires. The individual is not allowed to exclude others as rational moral agents who have the right to act as he acts in a given situation. For example, if I decide to use another person merely as a means for my own end I must recognize the other person’s right to do the same to me. I cannot consistently will that I use another as a means only and will that I not be used in the same manner by another. Hence, the universalizability criterion is a principle of consistency and a principle of inclusion. That is, in choosing my maxims I attempt to include the perspective of other moral agents.
4		-2. Non-Unique: They have to use some level of abstraction because if everything was concrete we would have to deal with each case without trying to apply some general concept beforehand but that obviously doesn’t happen because liberating the oppressed is used generically as a strategy.
5		-3. There is nothing good or bad about endorsing certain ideas. All ideas have been misused or applied to do horrible things. Ideas are not bad; people are bad. WOOD:
6		-“Kantian Ethics” By Allen W. Wood.
7		-“Often, criticisms of Kant (or any other historical philosopher) on such grounds are really an indirect way of arguing against the contemporary use of a philosopher’s ideas by others who obviously do not share Kant’s errors about race or gender. It is a cheap way of resisting an important philosopher’s influence. Often enough this is nothing but a strategy of “guilt by association,” practiced by those who are evidently incapable of challenging the philosopher’s ideas on their genuine merits. There is no plausibility at all, for example, in the suggestion that such Kantian principles as human equality, rationalism, universalism, and cosmopolitanism are in their content favorable to racism, sexism, or other forms of oppression, and such a thesis needs only to be stated explicitly to discredit itself. But this highly implausible thesis may be put forward by implication if it can be associated with the quite distinct but correct point that even a cosmopolitan and universalistic ethical theory, such as Kant’s, can be combined with racist or male-supremacist views in its application. It is also true that egalitarianism, rationalism, universalism, and cosmopolitanism are especially is liable to rhetorical abuse by those who advocate policies in direct violation of them, because subscribing to the correct principles at an abstract level is often enough a shabby ploy used to protect contrary policies from criticism. The thought that this point has any philosophical significance, however, rests on an error of abysmal proportions about philosophy and its relation to human practices. If someone thinks there is a philosophical theory of morality whose uncritical adoption and mechanical application would suffice to protect us from evil, then that person is looking for something that could never exist. The correct standard for an ethical theory is whether it gets things right at the level of basic principles and values, not whether it contains some magical property that protects us, in the application of the theory, from every perversion or abuse through the influence of tradition and prejudice or the infinite human ingenuity of rationalization. All theories are about equally subject to such abuse, and no theory is immune to it. In fact, If we think that the adoption of a certain philosophical theory, or a certain set of religious dogmas, will protect us from all moral error, that way of thinking itself is extremely dangerous, quite irrespective of the content of the theory or dogma with which we associate it. That thought itself is actually responsible for a lot of the evil that people do.”
8		-4. The NC framework controls the internal link to their impact, which is oppression but there is no conception of oppression in their framing. Only the NC can make these claims i.e violating freedom is oppressive.
9		-5. Action theory is not abstract because it deals with the empirical reality of how agents act.
10		-6. 2. Respecting the rationality of every person is key to rectify historical sources of racism and oppression against African Americans. Wright and Rogers
11		-3. Slavery ended with the Civil War almost a century and a half ago, but of course its impact did not disappear simply because this form of racialized class relations had been destroyed. Slavery contributed to a particularly pernicious and durable form of racist beliefs that continues to influence American culture today. Slavery posed a deep cultural problem for the United States after the American Revolution: How could a country founded on the principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” accommodate slavery? How was it possible to reconcile the devotion to liberty and democracy with the treatment of some people as the property of others? The solution to this deeply contradictory reality was the elaboration of racial ideologies of degradation and dehumanization of blacks as intellectually and morally inferior and thus not worthy of treatment as full persons. The attribution of intellectual inferiority meant that blacks were seen as lacking intellectual capacities for rational action, and thus, as in the case of children, choices should be made on their behalf by responsible adults. The attribution of moral inferiority supported the view of blacks as inherently dangerous, ruled by passions, both aggressive and sexual, and thus incapable of exercising liberty. These beliefs constituted the core of the racist culture forged under slavery and although such beliefs were increasingly challenged in the last decades of the twentieth century and are no longer seen as respectable, they continue to influence race relations to the present.

EntryDate

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1		-2016-12-04 04:57:24.0

Judge

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1		-Drew Burd

Opponent

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1		-Southlake Carroll RP

ParentRound

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1		-31

Round

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1		-Triples

Team

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1		-Strake Jesuit Chen Neg

Title

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1		-3 - Kant Solves Oppression Best

Tournament

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1		-UT