Everything Is F*cked(76)

Chapter 6: The Formula of Humanity


1. M. Currey, Daily Routines: How Artists Work (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), pp. 81–82.

2. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Lara Denis, trans. Mary Gregor (1797; repr. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2017), p. 34.

3. In his 1795 essay “Towards Perpetual Peace,” Kant proposed a world governing body. See Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey (1795; repr. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 107–44.

4. S. Palmquist, “The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s Worldview: (I) The Early Influence of Kant’s System of Perspectives,” Polish Journal of Philosophy 4, no. 1 (2010): 45–64.

5. Granted, he suggested it hypothetically. Kant didn’t believe that animals had will or reason, but he did say that if animals were capable of will and reason, they should be afforded the same rights as humans. Today, there’s a strong argument that many animals are capable of will and reason. For a discussion of this, see Christine M. Korsgaard, “A Kantian Case for Animal Rights,” in Animal Law: Developments and Perspectives in the 21st Century, ed. Margot Michael, Daniela Kühne, and Julia H?nni (Zurich: Dike Verlag, 2012), pp. 3–27.

6. Hannah Ginsborg, “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/kant-aesthetics.

7. The dispute was between “rationalists” and “empiricists,” and the book was Kant’s most famous work, Critique of Pure Reason.

8. Kant sought to establish an entire ethical system with rationality as its God Value. I won’t get into the intricacies of Kantian ethics here, as there are many flaws in Kant’s system. For this chapter, I have merely plucked what I believe to be the most useful principle and conclusion from Kant’s ethics: the Formula of Humanity.

9. There’s a subtle contradiction here. Kant sought to develop a value system that existed outside the subjective judgments of the Feeling Brain. Yet the desire to build a value system on reason alone is itself a subjective judgment made by the Feeling Brain. Put another way, couldn’t you say that Kant’s desire to create a value system that transcended the confines of religion was itself a religion? This was Nietzsche’s criticism of Kant. He thought Kant was a fucking joke. He found Kant’s ethical system absurd and his belief that he had transcended faith-based subjectivity na?ve at best and outright narcissistic at worst. Therefore, it will strike readers with a background in philosophy as strange that I’m relying on the two of them so much for my book’s argument. But I don’t see this as much of an issue. I think that each man got something right that the other missed. Nietzsche got it right that all human beliefs are inherently imprisoned by our own perspectives and are, therefore, faith-based. Kant got it right that some value systems produce better and more logical results than others due to their potentially universal desirability. So, technically, yes, Kant’s ethical system is another form of faith-based religion. But I also think that in the same way that science, and its belief in putting one’s faith in what has the most evidence, produces the best belief systems, Kant stumbled upon the best basis for creating value systems—that is, one should value that which perceives value above all else: consciousness.

10. In terms of minimizing fucks given, Kant’s lifestyle choices would probably make him the world champion. See Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, pp. 15–19.

11. This statement could be interpreted in a number of ways. The first interpretation is that Kant managed to step outside the subjective space of Feeling Brain value judgments to create a universally applicable value system. Philosophers two hundred fifty years later are still arguing about whether he accomplished this—most say he didn’t. (See note 9 in this chapter for my take.)

The second interpretation is that Kant ushered in an age of nonsupernatural views of morality—the belief that morality could be deduced outside spiritual religions. This is absolutely true. Kant set the stage for a scientifically pursued moral philosophy that continues today.

The third interpretation of this statement is that I’m hyping the fuck out of Kant to keep people interested in the chapter. This is also absolutely true.

12. It is important to point out that I will be applying Kant’s ideas in this chapter in ways he never applied them himself. The chapter is a strange three-way marriage of Kantian ethics, developmental psychology, and virtue theory. If that doesn’t get your nipples hard, I don’t know what will.

13. The developmental framework in this chapter is derived from (and simplifies) the work of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Robert Kegan, Erik Erikson, S?ren Kierkegaard, and others. In Kegan’s model, my definition of “childhood” maps his Stages 1 and 2 (Impulsive and Imperial), my definition of “adolescence” maps his Stages 3 and 4 (Interpersonal and Institutional), and my “adulthood” maps his Stage 5 (Interindividual). For more on Kegan’s model, see R. Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). In Kohlberg’s model, my “childhood” maps his Preconventional stage of moral development (Obedience and Punishment orientation and Instrumental orientations), my “adolescence” maps his Conventional stage of moral development (Good Boy/Nice Girl and Law-and-Order orientations), and my “adulthood” maps his Postconventional stage of moral development (Social Contract and Universal-Ethical-Principle orientations). For more on Kohlberg’s model, see L. Kohlberg, “Stages of Moral Development,” Moral Education 1, no. 51 (1971): 23–92. In Piaget’s model, my “childhood” maps his Sensorimotor and Preoperational stages, my “adolescence” maps his Concrete Operational stage, and my “adulthood” loosely maps his later Formal Operational stage. For more about Piaget’s theory of psychological development, see J. Piaget, “Piaget’s Theory,” Piaget and His School (Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, 1976), pp. 11–23.