Ethnic Philosophy and Religion (2000)

Author: / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-01-01
Features: Logical Propositions and the Intuitive Acceptability of Propositions
Lixiaoke points out that certain logical proposition forms with specific content are not always easily accepted by intuition; some of them are even difficult for human intuition to accept. For example, if someone in a unit is hospitalized, the leader may ask one or two comrades to visit the patient and say, "Either Zhang San or Li Si should go to the hospital to see Wang Wu." The office staff will not have any problems in understanding or implementing this instruction. They will not even need to make any further inferences, as the instruction is clear and straightforward, and there will be no intuitive issues. However, if work commitments prevent both Zhang San and Li Si from going at the same time, the office head might suggest to the unit leader, "Since both comrades are unavailable due to work, could it be arranged that either Zhang San does not go or Li Si does not go to visit Wang Wu at the hospital?" The unit leader will also have no difficulty in understanding this suggestion, as it is equally intuitive.
If the unit leader gives one of the following two instructions, however, problems may arise:
- "Either Zhang San goes, or Li Si does not go"
- "Either Zhang San does not go, or Li Si goes"
In such cases, the office staff may become confused and unsure of the leader's intentions, not knowing whether Zhang San should go or whether Li Si should visit Wang Wu. The reason for this issue lies in the logical forms used in these instructions, which lack intuitive acceptability.
For example, if you tell a waiter at the cafeteria counter, "Either order a bowl of rice or a bowl of noodles," there will be no communication problems. But if you say, "Either do not order a bowl of rice or order a bowl of noodles," your lunch might become troublesome. The waiter (if he lacks sufficient knowledge of logic) may misunderstand your meaning or even think you are joking with him.
At this point, someone might argue that such problems do not occur in real life, at least not in general interactions. This view is correct, but the purpose of raising this issue in this article is not to suggest that people use such proposition forms to construct riddles similar to "riddle of the quick wit." The aim is to explore why these proposition forms are difficult for intuition to accept and to examine their characteristics and related issues.
The above judgment is known as the disjunctive judgment. There are two types of disjunctive judgments: those involving compatible relationships and those involving incompatible relationships. The distinction between the acceptability of judgment forms or proposition forms and disjunctive judgments seems unnecessary to discuss, so the following section will take compatible disjunctive judgments as an example to discuss this issue.
This is a famous argument in Kant's moral philosophy. Due to the central role of the concept of the good will in Kant's moral philosophy system, understanding this argument is of great significance for the entire moral philosophy of Kant. For this reason, this assertion has been repeatedly cited and discussed from multiple levels. However, this does not mean that its meaning becomes clear as a result. On the contrary, most interpretations ultimately reduce it to formalism by implicitly treating utility as a mark of an ethical principle, thereby obscuring its substantive meaning.
In this assertion, Kant adopts a negative descriptive approach, aiming to emphasize the uniqueness of the good will as the only thing that can be conceived as unconditionally good. Under this condition, we can transform this assertion into a positive statement: in the world, even in the world, the only thing that can be conceived as unconditionally good is the good will.
This makes it even more evident that since this assertion only involves the concepts of unconditional good and the good will, understanding it reduces to interpreting these two concepts. On one hand, as we will see, what is meant by unconditional good is such good as is good through the activity of the will itself. On the other hand, the semantic focus of the concept "good will" lies more in "good" than in "will," that is, the concept refers to the unconditional goodness of the will. Clearly, the concepts of "unconditional good" and "good will" are mutually intersecting and mutually explanatory. Thus, understanding the above assertion reduces to interpreting either of the two concepts—in fact, ultimately to interpreting the "goodness of a good will."
From the requirements of interpreting the concept of the good will alone, it can be seen that in the history of Western ethics, the uniqueness of Kant's moral philosophy lies in the fact that as the core value term of moral philosophy, "good" is used by Kant to describe not the best result of actions as commonly understood, but the ground of the norm according to which actions are based—the will. Consequently, the theoretical value orientation of Kant's moral philosophy is not the universally praised principle of happiness, happiness, or utility, but the principle of freedom, because only the will can be free from the determination of any external necessary states or, and can achieve the supreme realm of autonomy, freedom, and. Only in this way can it fully embody the depth and dignity of human nature, so that in the world we live in, the best thing is undoubtedly the will itself; on the contrary, happiness is also the ultimate goal of human pursuit—as Aristotle put it, happiness is the self-sufficient good or the highest good. However, from the perspective of moral psychology, happiness ultimately depends on the satisfaction of natural desires. To achieve happiness, one must submit to the specifications of all objects that can satisfy desires, thus at least partially sacrificing freedom. In this sense, enjoying happiness is also unfortunate; it is fortunate because desires are fully satisfied, and it is unfortunate because such satisfaction comes at the cost of restricting the freedom of the will and submitting to desires. From both perspectives, while happiness is indeed the highest good as Aristotle claims, from Kant's perspective, it is conditional good.
3. This is the historical significance of Kant's concept of the good will in the history of ethics. As mentioned above, the interpretation of this concept ultimately boils down to the interpretation of the goodness of the good will. Therefore, as the beginning of the interpretation, we naturally ask: what is good? As in any other moral theory in the history of Western ethics, in Kant's moral philosophy, the question of good is both a core issue and a very difficult one to answer. It is a core issue because it is the direction and purpose of all moral actions, and it is difficult to answer because the meaning of good is so broad that it is hard to find any common property among things called good, as Aristotle said: "The meaning and existence of good are as numerous as they are. It can be used to describe what something is, such as gods and reason; it can be used to describe qualities, such as virtues; it can be used to describe quantities, such as moderation; it can be used to describe relationships, such as usefulness; it can be used to describe time, such as a good opportunity; it can be used to describe places, such as a beautiful house; and so on. This shows that nothing can be common, universal, or singular."