Topics Philosophers

Question Would Immanuel Kant oppose alternative rock? If we were to universalize the maxim "It is permissible to listen to alternative rock" then "alternative" rock would become mainstream, since everyone would listen to it. This of course creates a contradiction, implying we have a perfect duty not to listen to alternative rock. (I'm not trying to be silly. I think I've wildly misinterpreted Kant, and I was wondering if you could clear it up.) You might say that just because alt. rock was permitted, that doesn't mean everyone would listen to it. But if stealing was permitted, it doesn't logically follow that everyone would steal. (Same goes for lying.)

Accepted:
July 22, 2008

Comments

I'm not a Kant scholar so can't say much helpful about your interpretation of Kant (the contradiction test has always puzzled me), but there is an assumption in your argument that seems worth questioning. You suggest that if everyone listened to alternative rock, it wouldn't be alternative anymore, and so there is a contradiction in generalizing the maxim.

But I wonder if it is essential to alternative rock that it is "alternative"? It seems to me that alternative rock is a kind of music (I kind I like a lot) that is not defined by its being alterantive, but by the norms of the genre. There are kinds of rock that aren't mainstream, but aren't "alternative rock" either. They are just unpopular. So "alternative rock" is not equivalent to "unpopular rock" or "non-mainstream rock".

Philosophers sometimes distinguish two ways of using descriptions. One way is to pick something out, but once you've picked it out using the description, you can talk about that thing even in contexts where it doesn't fit the description. So I can say, without contradiction, that the inventor of bifocals might not have invented bifocals, i.e., Benjamin Franklin might never have invented bifocals, someone else might have done so, maybe even before him. Another way of using descriptions, however, doesn't allow this. So if I say that the inventor of bifocals necessarily worked with lenses, I don't mean that Benjamin Franklin necessarily worked with lenses, but rather, the inventor of bifocals, whoever it might be, would have to work with lenses. It seems to me that in your argument you are using the term "alternative rock" as a description in the second way, but it is possible to use it in the first way - as a kind of name for the genre, whether everyone loves it or not.

I don't think this undermines your point, but it does suggest another example might work better.

Very clever question. Maxims can fail to live up to the moral law in (at least) two ways. Either they are themselves impossible as universal laws; or they are impossible for us to consistently will to be moral laws. An example of the first type would be a rule such as ‘lie when it is in your best interest’. This is not universalisable at all. Lying only forms an advantage to you when the other person trusts you, and they would only trust you if they thought there was a strong possibility that you were not lying! Universal lying destroys trust, and thus makes lying itself impossible. An example of the second type would be ‘do not be charitable even to those in dire need’. This rule can be universalised in the sense that it is entirely possible that human nature should have been so constituted that charity was impossible. But, Kant claims, it is impossible for us consistently to will this state of affairs. We might find ourselves in dire need of help from others, and will the opposite. You cannot consistently will that X be absolutely universal if there could be circumstances in which you would will it not be so. Of course, you might be willing at the moment to take the risk of such a reversal of circumstances. But that doesn't make it morally right any more than taking the risk of stealing something because, at the moment, there is little chance of anyone noticing makes theft morally right. (This point about consistency of willing is famously picked up in the political philosophy of John Rawls.)

And yes, universalising 'permissible' is not the best way of stating the problem, since that merely states moral indifference: people can listen if they want to, which is pretty much the case now. What, though, would be Kant's objection to universalising the permissibility of lying or stealing? It is not obviously a logical problem, as you point out, but it might be a consistency of willing problem.