Locke on religious toleration

Locke on religious toleration
In the first ten pages of the letter, Locke talked about his thought of the 1nature of religious faith, the relation of church to salvation of soul, the separation of government from religious, and the structure of church. The core of these questions is the liberty of conscience.

At the beginning, Locke criticized the fact in history that some church of Christ impelled pagans to believe Christ by force. He thinks that compelling way is not valid because the real faith is based on the conviction of mind which is derived from freedom of conscience. Moreover, he believe the coercion from church is not the thing a real church should do, that is, coercion in faith is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity.

Further, he thinks the coercive force merely belongs to the government whose mission is mainly limited to promote the civil interests and public order, such as citizen's life,freedom of speech,and their belongings. Since the power of government is limited to the public area, the government cannot involve the salvation of soul. Therefore, the division of roles are separate between church and government, one works on the sake of the salvation of soul, the other works on the sake of public interests.

Then, what is the proper way that a church should go? Locke offers his understanding of the structure of a real church and the respective function of section. The way Locke explains the derivation of church is similar to the origination of government although they have absolutely different mission and functions. According to Locke, a church is a result of consent of some relevant people, therefore, he thinks the church is a voluntary society constituted by voluntary members to promote the salvation of soul together. Since the enter onto a church is based on one's consent, the withdrawal is also made by one's own choice. No any coercion should be involved in the promotion of faith.

The next question he will talk is about to what the religious should be?

The second talk with Chris

I had the second talk with Chris concerning Kant's Groundwork. When I got into his office, he was getting a post containing a new book. He is very happy to see his article appearing in the book. It is a paper collection on Dating. Congratulation.

Then we started talking about Kant. He asked me which way I like, he asks me question or I ask him question. I chose the first way. He followed questions set last time. The first question is about the difference between good will and character traits. The point is that character traits like courage,wit,perseverance,happiness,etc, are not conditionally good, they may be evil if there is no good will. In contrast, good will is absolutely and unconditionally good and the condition for goodness of other character traits. He referred to a question about the relation between good will and duty. I cited the text to indicate that the concept of duty contains the concept of good will, but he pointed out a part I neglected. When Kant says that he adds a limitation of subjection: under some subjective limitation and hindrance. Chris led me to know that the condition means that the concept of duty do not only contain that of good will but also that of desire. But in most of cases, according to Kantian moral psychology, the good will always wins. If there is no desire, we will not need duty. He also made a distinction about different accounts of duty. A duty or duties is different duty without a or the, and action from duty. A duty or duties means moral requirements, but duty without a or the is just a psychological phenomenon in Kantian sense.

After that, we turned to the second topic about the difference between action from duty and action in accord with duty. Action from duty is motived by respect for moral law while the action in accord with duty is motived by desires. Generally, we think that action in accord with duty may be not action from duty but action from duty will necessarily be action in accord with duty. Chris has doubt about this proposition. I thing this judgement is logic unless the word duty in the two phrase have different meanings.

Then, we talked about the third topic of freedom. He required me to put forth my understanding of Kant. The negative freedom mainly means the absence of obstacle, that is, action from will is not determined by alien causes, which here mainly refers to desires, like inclination, preference. In Kantian sense, desire is external to reason although we generally believe desire is also an internal aspect of person. What is positive freedom? I did not answer this question well. I just put it like this: positive freedom means one acts according to his own will which is a law to itself. How to improve that people have freedom? I referred to the text: reason must regard itself as free, otherwise, the will will not be the will of itself. Chris gave me another rough argument. Kant tried to prove the reality of freedom by indicating the existence of morality while the morality always goes with freedom. No freedom no morality.

Finally I asked a question about the relation between good will and reason. I asked whether good will and reason is the same thing. He thought they are roughly the same thing. In Kantian project, the reason is moralized, and therefore, the pure practical reason always goes together with the stable respect for moral law. This account is very close to the implication of good will.

Then, I raised the topic for next week. 1. The relation between formula of universal law of nature and the formula of humanity. Kant thinks they are same, but Chris does not think so. 2. Four arguments for the derivation of duty from universal law.

He also explained the difference between duty and maxim, which a question I have. I ever think duty is same with maxim, but in fact they are absolutely not. Chris explains that maxims are things that need test through the universal law. Once it succeeds, it is permissible, but not a duty; once it failed, then there is a duty.I am confused on this question. Did I misunderstood him? I will check it.

I regret for that I did not record the talk successfully. What a pity.

Negative and positive freedom

In Groundwork, there is a distinction between negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative concept of freedom is articulated by contrast with natural necessity. According to Kant's account, freedom is the property of will. Will is a kind of causality which is different from the physical causality determined by external causes. Causality of will is derived from free will itself independently from alien causes.

There is a positive concept of freedom which is based on the concept of autonomy. In western tradition, autonomy generally means self-government, that is, one acts according to his will and choice without intervene. However, according to Kant, autonomy also means law-author. Rational being as autonomous agent gives the moral law to itself and complies the law.

The new semester will start from next Monday and I will read more material.Read faster!!!

Action from duty and action in accordance with duty

On first sight, it is easy to think that both of them mean the same thing. However, according to Kant, there is big differences between them. The most apparent case is the one which is generally considered as good action but is carried by the person who is compelled to do that. In such case, the action of the man seems to be in conformity with duty but actually merely has no any moral worth because the action is not what he honestly wants to do. When he is doing such a good action, some evil may be in his mind. So, we can not judge that he is a good person simply according to what he is doing but evaluate his behavior from the maxim that he is acting on, that is, the principle of volition. This is just a obvious case, but there are still many case that are difficult to distinguish one from one another, such as in case which is good but merely just serves one's self-seeking purpose.
To articulate the difference between them, Kant raises four typical examples in the book. First one is about the principle of honesty in commerce. When a merchant charge all his customers the same price just for avoiding low profits or higher benefits, he is doing that in accordance with duty but not from duty. The second one is about the precept of preservation of life. Only when one takes care of his life not for fear of death but for his responsibility to exist, his action is from duty rather than from inclination. The third one is the precept of beneficence. Beneficence for joy or honor and the like, can not be respected as action from duty. The fourth one is about the precept of happiness. People have strong instinct to pursue their happiness, but according to Kant, it is not from duty if one promotes his happiness just for satisfaction with his inclinations.

Then, what is the core point of action from duty? An action from duty has its moral worth not because of the purpose obtained by it but because of the maxim according to which it is determined. Kant's understanding of morality is opposite to Hume's consequentialism. His account of morality is deontology. What is duty? Duty is the necessity of action from respect for law which is connected with will as ground of practice. I will review the connection between law and will.

Today I attended a presentation given by Haddock about accounts of self knowledge.
 self-seeking purpose.

Reason and good will

Reason and good will
When I was working the issue of good will, I found a good interesting thing which is about the relationship between reason and good will in Kant's work. In groundwork of metaphysics of morals, Kant refers to reason when he talk about the purpose of nature. According to his observation, if there is such called end of nature for human being as preservation of life, welfare if man, and in short, happiness of man, the natural instinct will be more efficient to carry out these purpose than reason. However, since the reason is given to us as practical faculty, the vocation of reason is to establish the good will which is absolutely good in itself and apart from any other purpose. To achieve this, reason only can fulfill the kind of itself, that the end is determined by reason itself. This is where the will come from.

Good will

According to Kant's understanding of good will, it is the mere thing that has unconditional worth. Neither gifts of nature like understanding,wit,courage,resolution nor gifts of fortune like riches, honor, health, even happiness, are not guaranteed to be morally good unless a good will is presupposed, because they could be either good or bad according to different motives. For example, wit is usually considered as a good trait for man because it could help people make smart decisions when they face problem but it could be also used to serve immoral action and carry it out successfully. From the point of view, the good will is the condition of moral worth of these traits and qualities. A good will is good not because of what it accomplished or success of obtaining the presupposed ends, but because of the goodness in itself. 

All other traits or qualities are efficient only when they are used to serve some ends that are out of themselves and therefore, the goodness is conditional to the ends they are serving. According to Kant, such kind of action has no intrinsic moral worth and only action from good will has absolutely and unconditionally worth. Good will does not depend on any external end. The value of it derives from itself. 

Kant refuses the interpretation of morality that attribute it to some preserved purposes like self-interest, happiness, self-preservation and so on. For example, a merchant charges the same price for one kind of good to all customers. If he does this only because that will bring more profit for him, then his action has, according to Kant, no moral worth. The end he is really pursuing is out of morality. In another word, the worth of his action is conditional to the end he pursues even though his action seems to be in conformity with duty. 

The point I should remember is that the good will has worth in itself and therefore, is absolutely good. It is the origin of worth itself. Once understand the special feature of good will, it will be easier to understand the distinction between action from duty and action in accord with duty.

Each sentence in the book deserves serious attention. 

Questions given by Chris

For this week, remember to review the following:

 

1.       What is the good will? What's so special about it (compared to other character traits)?

2.       What's the difference between acting from duty and acting in accord with duty?

3.       What are the different kinds/aspects of freedom (positive and negative)?