The Art of Manliness - A Kantian Guide to Life

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.420 If you've had some contact with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, there's a good chance you found

00:00:15.700 it abstract, heady, and hard to understand. But my guests would say that it's full of rich,

00:00:20.540 usable insights on how to become better people. And fortunately for us, she's got a true knack

00:00:25.800 for making Kant's wisdom really accessible. Karen Storr is a professor of philosophy and the

00:00:30.780 author of Choosing Freedom, A Kantian Guide to Life. Today on the show, she brings Kant's ethical

00:00:36.020 system and categorical imperative down to earth and shares how it can be applied to our everyday

00:00:40.480 lives. We discuss Kant's belief in our great moral potential and duty to improve ourselves

00:00:44.900 and how his insights can help us make right choices. Karen explains Kant's ideas on the

00:00:49.380 difference between negative and positive freedom, the importance of treating people as ends and not

00:00:53.740 just means, the tension between love and respect, why ingratitude could be considered a satanic

00:00:59.340 vice, how practicing manners can make us better people, and more. You can't miss this episode.

00:01:05.600 Sorry, I had to do that. Out of the show is over. Check out our show notes at aom.is slash Kant.

00:01:23.740 All right, Karen Storr, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:01:31.640 So you are a professor of philosophy who has written and researched a lot about the Prussian

00:01:36.280 philosopher, Immanuel Kant. And you wrote a book about his philosophy called Choosing Freedom,

00:01:41.680 A Kantian Guide to Life, which is, it's a very reader-friendly introduction to Kant's ethics.

00:01:48.000 Because I think if you took a college ethics course, you definitely covered Kant. But you

00:01:54.300 probably, like me, found Kant to be kind of abstract and hard to understand. But you did a

00:02:00.300 really good job of making his ethical system really accessible. So if people aren't familiar

00:02:06.600 with Kant, why do you think this philosopher of the 18th century is still relevant today in the 21st?

00:02:12.600 Yeah, so I think Kant gives us an incredibly powerful ethical theory that's capable of illuminating

00:02:20.700 all kinds of human problems that are still very important to us, and also giving us guidance on

00:02:27.680 how to maybe think about solving them. And that's because his theory has these robust concepts like

00:02:33.720 things like autonomy and respect and dignity and equality. And he has really useful things to say

00:02:38.760 about all of those. And why do you think, I mean, in my experience,

00:02:42.640 it's sort of the popular culture. I think Stoicism gets a lot of play, maybe Aristotelian virtue ethics,

00:02:48.360 Nietzsche, people like to talk about Nietzsche. But Kant gets overlooked. Why do you think that is?

00:02:53.560 Yeah, well, I think this is partly Kant's own fault. He's really hard to read. And I think for a lot

00:02:58.420 of people, it can seem kind of dry, or like disconnected from their lives in ways that Aristotle,

00:03:03.960 the Stoics don't. But I think it isn't. I think that part of the problem is that there's a tendency

00:03:09.620 to read sort of small bits of Kant's work, but we get a better sense of who he was and what he cared

00:03:15.520 about if we read a wider array of things that he wrote. And once we do that, both sometimes the

00:03:21.620 reading gets a little bit easier, and we can kind of see what Kant was about in ways that we can't

00:03:27.260 always by just focusing, for instance, on his famous groundwork.

00:03:30.180 And how would you describe how Kantian ethics differs from other ethical systems,

00:03:35.280 for example, like Aristotelian virtue ethics? Because I know that's another area of your

00:03:39.840 expertise.

00:03:40.620 Yeah, so I think Kant actually probably has more in common with both Aristotle and the Stoics

00:03:45.600 than it might seem. He was actually very influenced, particularly by Stoicism. And he's often talking

00:03:51.020 in ways where it's clear he's responding to the ancients. So one of the hallmarks of Kant's theory

00:03:56.280 is his emphasis on reason. That's something that is absolutely present in Aristotle and the Stoics

00:04:01.620 too. Kant also emphasizes an ideal in ways that Aristotelians and Stoics do as well. In Kant's

00:04:09.000 case, the ideal in question is what he calls a person with a goodwill. So there's many ways in

00:04:14.300 which the structure of Kant's theory is very much in line with other sorts of ethical theories.

00:04:19.420 But Kant's theory is also very modern in other ways. He's an enlightenment philosopher,

00:04:23.960 and this is reflected in the kinds of things that he cares about, focusing on things like

00:04:28.140 individual rights, political liberty, problems about coercion and consent, religious tolerance.

00:04:34.200 These are all problems that Kant saw in the world around him that he also wanted to solve. So it's a

00:04:41.060 different spin on ethical problems than you'd find in ancient philosophers, but there's, I think,

00:04:46.980 actually more in common across them than there is that separates them.

00:04:50.840 Yeah. And what do you think are the biggest misconceptions people have about Kant? Because

00:04:55.740 as you said, he's hard to understand. He's hard to read sometimes. So that can cause a lot of

00:05:00.100 misconceptions. What are the biggest ones you've seen in your career?

00:05:03.720 So I think probably the biggest one is that Kant only cares about us as rational beings, that he's

00:05:10.180 uninterested in actual problems of actual human life. I think that's a common portrayal of Kant,

00:05:16.300 but I think it's just false. And I think it's, you can see that it's false. If you sort of read

00:05:20.520 into other things that he wrote, he had a lot to say about moral psychology and about sort of the

00:05:25.840 complicated conditions of actual human lives. So that's probably the biggest. There's also a

00:05:31.100 tendency to treat Kant as very focused on individuals and not at all in communities. I think this is also

00:05:36.940 a mistake. I think that he does actually have lots to say about how we live with other people in

00:05:41.760 communities. And then I think the third one, and maybe this is the most damaging one of all

00:05:46.340 for people who studied him at all in school, is that thinking of Kant as being incredibly rigid and

00:05:52.720 dogmatic about things, particularly people often think of him as someone who had an absolute

00:05:58.380 prohibition on lying. And that actually, I think is, his views online are misunderstood. They're actually

00:06:03.560 much more nuanced than people realize. But I think that all of those are not quite right. There's not

00:06:09.060 that there's no truth to any of them, but they're an oversimplification or kind of a character that

00:06:14.980 the full picture of Kant's work is way more interesting, way more focused on how we make

00:06:20.980 sense of the problems that we face as real, normal, frail, embodied human beings than people realize.

00:06:27.360 Yeah, I had that last misconception. I've always thought of Kant as, you know, he's a deontological

00:06:32.100 philosopher, which he is, it's about duty. But his idea of duty isn't totally rigid and you have to

00:06:37.360 stick, no matter what, here's this rule and you got to follow the rule. He is, like you said,

00:06:42.360 Aristotelian. There's instances where you have to use some discretion and judgment to figure these

00:06:46.340 things out. Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's no question that Kantianism presents us with certain

00:06:52.880 kinds of absolute prohibition. So most people are familiar with trolley problems and maybe familiar

00:06:58.100 with the version that says, hey, can you push the guy off the bridge in order to stop the trolley?

00:07:02.320 Kant's answer to that is going to be like, no, that's just not a thing you can do.

00:07:05.300 So there are some absolute sort of principles, but not really as many as people think. And they

00:07:11.900 don't have quite the form that people think. He's not really trying to sort of create a rule book

00:07:16.360 for us about how to live. Instead, he's trying to call our attention to certain sort of crucial

00:07:21.780 features of us and the way we relate to other human beings that are going to kind of guide the

00:07:26.540 way that we act. So you start out the book saying to understand Kant's ethical system, you have to

00:07:31.600 understand his idea of human nature and I guess the telos of humans. You can say this about any

00:07:36.920 philosopher. If you want to understand Aristotle, you have to understand what he thought humans were

00:07:40.260 made for, their ends or even Nietzsche or whatever. So how did Kant view humans and what was his telos?

00:07:46.720 You mentioned that idea of an ideal human is someone with goodwill. So flesh that out a little

00:07:51.060 bit more for us.

00:07:51.740 Yes. Oh, I'd love to do this because of course people do think rightly so of Aristotle as a

00:07:58.020 theorist who's grounded in human nature and people often don't think of Kant that way, but in fact he

00:08:03.100 is. And one of the things I find so interesting and actually quite appealing about Kant is that Kant

00:08:08.980 thinks that sort of as a matter of human nature, we're basically pretty much a mess. You know,

00:08:13.300 we're prone to all kinds of wickedness and frailties. We've got all these issues ourselves,

00:08:18.900 but he also thinks we are capable of being so much more than we are. So there's a pretty big gap

00:08:25.180 for Kant between sort of what human nature is like and what human beings are capable of being.

00:08:31.180 So it's both like sort of pessimistic and optimistic at the same time, if that makes sense.

00:08:35.620 But the point about the teleology and about sort of the direction of humanity, this is really

00:08:40.120 controversial within Kant because it's kind of hard to know how he was talking about it, but there's a

00:08:44.460 general idea behind it that Kant thinks that we are oriented both sort of naturally and actually

00:08:51.960 sort of morally we're drawn toward improvement in progress. And this is true of us as individuals

00:08:57.640 and also true of us as communities of people. So Kant thought that progress is something we can do

00:09:05.100 and that we're sort of oriented toward doing as a matter of nature, but it's also not just going to

00:09:10.580 unfold on its own. We have to do things. We have to act to make sure that we are becoming better and

00:09:17.340 that our communities are becoming better. And Kant's ethics is very much about how to take that

00:09:22.220 action, how to become better, how to progress. No. And he even says, because we have that natural

00:09:28.320 orientation to want to get better. He says, we have a duty. That's one of our duties in life is to

00:09:33.380 make ourselves better, primarily ethically, like become more moral people.

00:09:37.440 Yes, absolutely. He does think it's a duty. So Kant sees us as sort of creatures who could

00:09:43.740 sort of go either way. We have tendencies that take us in the direction of evil or at least failures of

00:09:50.440 various kinds, but he also thinks we have the capacity to choose otherwise. And that capacity to

00:09:56.440 choose what is right or what is good is for Kant what is so central about us. And on Kant's view,

00:10:03.440 we do have a duty to do that and to make ourselves into the kind of people who will be better and who

00:10:10.460 will make good choices and help move our communities toward better versions of what they are now.

00:10:17.060 And so it is, that's like our main moral goal is to try to make some progress as best we can.

00:10:23.520 I think people listening might've heard that metaphor that Kant made about our human nature.

00:10:27.540 He called us crooked timber, basically. So in our job as, and we say carpenters of ourselves is to

00:10:33.840 make something beautiful out of this crooked timber we've been given.

00:10:37.500 Yes. Yes. To straighten ourselves out, basically, as best we can. Kant also recognizes that we are

00:10:43.560 never going to fully succeed, at least not in this life, because it's just not possible. But we can

00:10:49.100 always be trying. We can always be attempting to make something better out of the kind of mess that we

00:10:54.760 are. And this is sort of the goal of our striving in many ways, but he's also really hopeful that we

00:11:00.680 can do it. Like we're not fated to stay crooked in a sense. We can make ourselves better. We can

00:11:06.260 straighten ourselves out. So a lot of ethicists, particularly Aristotelian virtue ethicists,

00:11:11.420 they focus on the types of virtues people should develop to live a good life. And Kant does that too.

00:11:17.180 We'll talk about some of that today, but you point out that Kant, he actually spends a lot of time

00:11:21.780 talking about vices. And the language he uses about vices is really delicious. It's, you know,

00:11:26.780 he calls things satanic and just, you know, just really great words. So why does Kant spend a lot

00:11:31.480 of time focusing on vice in his work? So Kant does spend a lot of time on vice. And even more

00:11:37.760 than I realized, you know, I've read Kant's works more times than I can count. And it wasn't in so sort

00:11:43.240 of like, until I was sort of far in that I realized how much of his discussions about us are framed in

00:11:50.880 vice terms. So Kant, it's not that he doesn't care about virtue. He does care about virtue. He thinks

00:11:55.080 of virtue as a kind of strength in doing what's right in the face of like obstacles and challenges

00:12:00.900 of different kinds. So he recognizes that some of these obstacles are outside of us, but he also

00:12:06.000 thinks a lot of them are inside of us. And the challenge is to sort of recognize the things that

00:12:12.720 are getting in the way of our own moral progress. And vice is, he talks about individual vices,

00:12:19.560 and he also talks about vice as kind of a catch-all. But vice is a way of thinking about ourselves in

00:12:27.640 relationship to other people that sort of warps our reasoning. At one point, he calls the vices

00:12:32.960 monsters that we have to fight, which I think is funny language. But vices have a tendency to sort of

00:12:39.620 block us from doing what we need to progress. And the reason why he emphasizes them so much, I think,

00:12:47.760 is that he thinks that when it comes to being better, like sort of getting a grip on our vices

00:12:53.800 and our character is probably the most of the battle. He doesn't think that the challenge necessarily

00:13:00.980 is in figuring out what to do. I mean, so sometimes it is, of course, there are really difficult moral

00:13:05.420 problems. But in many cases, the real problem is like getting ourselves to do the thing that we

00:13:10.280 already know is right. And that's where the sort of fighting vice comes in.

00:13:14.780 No, I think people can probably understand this. If you can just go through your life

00:13:19.720 avoiding vice, you're probably going to have a good life, right? If you just like follow the

00:13:23.320 Ten Commandments, don't kill people, don't lie, don't commit adultery, what else? Don't covet,

00:13:28.460 whatever. You're probably going to have a decent life. And then, you know, anything above that with

00:13:33.240 that virtue, those strengths you develop is going to be like icing on the cake. But if you know people

00:13:37.160 who, you know, they lie, they're constantly, you know, philandering, and they're constantly

00:13:40.940 just worried about what other people have, and they're comparing themselves, they're usually

00:13:45.700 not having a great time.

00:13:47.720 Right. Yeah. And they're also, I think, going to be sort of thinking about things in the wrong way.

00:13:52.900 So for Kant, vices often arise out of our sort of desire to put ourselves first in a variety of ways.

00:14:00.620 It could be like put our own interests or, you know, desires above the desires and interests of others,

00:14:05.200 or to kind of want to claim a sort of standing for ourselves that we're not willing to grant to

00:14:10.500 others. We want to feel sometimes superior to people. Sometimes we tend to feel inferior to

00:14:14.940 them. And so these are all ways that shape our interactions with the world, like the person we

00:14:20.600 feel entitled to stuff, we feel angry or resentful when we don't get our way. All of those for Kant are

00:14:26.400 types of vices. And they block us from like living happily and having good friendships and all those

00:14:31.980 things. But they also just interfere with our capacity to reason well, Kant thinks. So we're

00:14:37.360 going to be getting the world wrong if we have vices. We're going to be getting our relationships

00:14:41.840 wrong if we're vicious. And so for Kant, like it's like the first step is to like sort of know thyself

00:14:48.220 and as best one can try to rid oneself of the vices to which we're prone.

00:14:53.100 All right. Start straightening that crooked timber. 0.99

00:14:54.960 Yes.

00:14:56.160 Okay. So let's dig into his ethics a little bit more. Let's talk about his famous categorical

00:15:01.680 imperative. This is a really complex nuance. It took you several chapters to walk people through

00:15:06.540 this. So I think you can probably dedicate a whole podcast to this, but what is the categorical

00:15:11.360 imperative and how does this help us achieve more freedom in our lives?

00:15:16.160 Yes. So this is really very much the heart of what Kant is about in many ways. Although in the book,

00:15:21.100 I also say that I think sometimes the focus on the categorical imperative can distract us from

00:15:25.360 other things that Kant wants to do, but it's definitely central. So let me just start quickly

00:15:29.920 with the idea of freedom. So Kant has this interesting view. I mean, there's lots to say

00:15:35.920 about freedom, but he thinks of freedom in a couple of different ways. One way is in terms

00:15:41.520 of what he calls negative freedom. Negative freedom is basically not being determined by anything else.

00:15:46.900 And Kant interestingly thinks we can't actually know for sure whether or not we're free. We don't

00:15:52.680 really know. Maybe the world is really determined. Maybe we don't really have an ability to make

00:15:56.760 choices, but he thinks that we can't help, but think of ourselves as being free because when

00:16:02.320 from sort of the inside or what philosophers might call a deliberative perspective, we have to think

00:16:08.180 of ourselves as capable of making choices that we can't just think of ourselves as something that's

00:16:13.280 pulled along by fate or by nature in some way. So we have to think of ourselves as capable of making

00:16:21.120 choices. But for Kant, there's another kind of freedom that matters more in some ways, which is

00:16:27.580 about using that freedom to choose well. Because we all know that it's possible to choose badly because

00:16:34.320 we all do it all the time. If we think about, look at the world around us and we see people

00:16:39.040 as choosing, making bad choices, but they're choosing them sometimes because they're caught up in

00:16:45.200 their desires for things like money or power or whatever it is. And those desires can take hold

00:16:52.080 of us in a way. So this is really well exemplified in, you know, like the Lord of the Rings, like the

00:16:56.460 desire for the one ring, you know, people become almost enslaved by their own desires, their own

00:17:02.840 themselves in a way. And this is an old idea because it goes back to Plato's Republic. It's actually where

00:17:07.480 that idea of the ring comes from, where Plato makes this really interesting claim that the life of a

00:17:12.040 tyrant is like the worst possible life because the tyrant is like the most enslaved person of all.

00:17:18.100 So Kant's idea of freedom, and this is getting to the categorical imperative, but his idea of freedom

00:17:22.560 is kind of in the same vein. This idea that I have this power of choice, but I can use it well or badly.

00:17:29.840 To use it badly is to use it in ways that don't really reflect my nature and my capacities as a

00:17:37.020 rational being. And so one of the ways we can see this is like when we all procrastinate, which of course

00:17:41.540 everybody does. So like when you procrastinate, it's a strange phenomenon because in some sense

00:17:47.180 you are choosing, like you're doing, you're sitting there on the couch playing video games or

00:17:52.740 something instead of exercising or doing your work or sleeping. And no one's making you do this. No

00:17:57.380 one's holding a gun to your head, but you're still doing it. And Kant would say that there's a sense in

00:18:02.680 which that's free, but also a sense in which it's not. Because to be free in this, what Kant calls a

00:18:09.020 positive sense is to use your reason well, to choose wisely. And sometimes that's going to mean

00:18:14.980 constraining yourself. And to choose wisely is to choose and act on principles, this is Kant's view,

00:18:21.880 that are rationally defensible in our own eyes and the eyes of others. And this is sort of the heart of

00:18:28.840 the categorical imperative. Because Kant thinks that when we're exercising our positive freedom,

00:18:35.020 when we're choosing well, he thinks that we are going to employ a principle of reasoning to which

00:18:43.560 he gives this name, the categorical imperative. Okay. That's a great setup. Yeah. So let's dig into

00:18:49.800 the categorical imperative. All right. So the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative,

00:18:53.720 Kant thinks, is basically a principle of common sense in many ways. He thinks already how a good

00:19:00.720 person thinks about their choices, but he has this sophisticated structure. So it's an imperative.

00:19:05.820 And that means it's a command, but it's a command of reason, not a command that somebody else is giving

00:19:11.740 us. And it's binding on us and binding on everyone, every rational being universally. And it doesn't

00:19:19.500 depend on what we want or what we care about, but on how we sort of think about ourselves as rational

00:19:24.600 beings. So there's a bunch of different formulas. Well, there's at least three formulations of it. The one

00:19:29.440 that people often know the most about is what's called the universal law formulation. So on this

00:19:34.680 one, Kant says that we should always act on maxims that we can will to be a universal law. So what does

00:19:41.700 that mean? Well, it's kind of like when people think, well, what if everybody did that? Or something

00:19:46.780 like the golden rule. Although it's a little bit different for Kant, because the idea here is that

00:19:52.480 to act well is to act on principles that are kind of rationally defensible in a community of rational

00:20:01.240 agents. So, and by that, it's a kind of principle that you could will that other people also have as

00:20:11.140 their own. So here's an example that I think makes this clear. It's not in Kant, but it's similar.

00:20:16.860 Think about cutting in line. So not everybody has lines, different cultures think differently about

00:20:22.660 lining up, but in a culture that does use lines as a way of getting people to sort of behave fairly

00:20:30.100 when someone cuts in line, because they just don't feel like standing in line, they're treating

00:20:35.140 themselves as a kind of exception. Like, okay, I'm going to operate according to a rule that I don't

00:20:40.880 want other people to operate by because if everybody cut in lines, there'd be no lines. So I want to

00:20:46.540 act on a maxim or a principle, I'll cut to the front of the line when I don't feel like waiting

00:20:51.720 that I don't want other people to act on. So I'm like making a rule for myself that puts me at the

00:20:58.260 center of the universe in some sense and not others. And Kant thinks that this is actually irrational

00:21:06.300 because there's nothing about me that makes me so special that I get to cut to the front of the line.

00:21:11.200 And so in doing this, I'm claiming a status for myself that I don't really have, that I'm like,

00:21:18.420 not everybody's equal. And Kant thinks this is irrational. And so that categorical imperative

00:21:24.780 in that form serves as a kind of like check on us to be like, are we actually thinking of us as

00:21:32.800 equal to everybody else here? And the categorical imperative is a way of sort of seeing when we're

00:21:40.640 doing that and when we're not. Okay. I like the example of cutting in line. I think that really

00:21:44.380 does explain it. And I think you've probably seen this in other areas of our life on a day-to-day

00:21:48.720 basis. Whenever you think, why I'm the exception here, Kant would say, well, maybe not. Because as

00:21:55.280 you said, it not only are you put yourself in a position of like as the center of the universe,

00:21:58.580 which he thinks is irrational and it's going to hurt the community, but it's also in the end,

00:22:03.420 it couldn't end up hurting you. If everyone decided to follow that exception that you want to make

00:22:07.320 for yourself, then it's probably going to hurt you eventually, right? If you decide, well,

00:22:11.640 if everyone could just cut in line, well, then when you need to get something, you're probably

00:22:15.720 not going to be able to get it because it's just chaos and you end up hurting yourself eventually.

00:22:20.860 Yeah. You're frustrating your own purposes, which is irrational on Kant's view.

00:22:25.540 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:22:27.580 And now back to the show. So that's one formulation of the categorical imperative.

00:22:37.100 Talk about another one.

00:22:38.980 Yeah. So the other, a second formulation is what's usually called the humanity formulation.

00:22:42.960 And this one, and Kant thinks these are all equivalent, but they're different ways of saying

00:22:47.500 the same thing. The humanity formulation tells us that we always have to act in a way that treats

00:22:53.500 humanity in ourselves and in other people as an end in itself and never as a mere means.

00:23:01.000 And so this is often sort of spelled out in terms of treating ourselves and others as having dignity

00:23:06.280 and respecting that dignity. And there's all kinds of implications of this principle.

00:23:10.380 That principle is actually the one that Kant uses more often and one that often shows up most

00:23:17.080 in discussions about Kant's ethics. So the universal law formulation is more famous in many ways,

00:23:22.220 but the humanity formulation is one that actually gets used a lot.

00:23:26.200 Well, let's talk about the humanity formulation. Cause I think, as you said, this, this shows up in

00:23:30.780 all parts of our life. And that's why I think it makes it such a useful and powerful idea. So let's

00:23:37.620 talk about treating people as ends and not just means. So what are some examples of us treating people

00:23:44.940 as ends? And then also examples of treating people as means?

00:23:49.920 Yeah. So Kant thinks of it sort of the most foundational part of it is actually sort of

00:23:55.360 not treating people as what he calls a mere means. And so this is, there's a common sense equivalent to

00:24:00.880 this that we're all familiar with this idea of just like using people, seeing them as objects that

00:24:05.760 you can manipulate for your own purposes, however noble your purposes are, but to see them as things in

00:24:11.940 the world that you can use that are free for you to use. So back to the trolley problem, you know,

00:24:17.500 you're pushing the guy off the bridge to stop the trolley. You're using him as a mere means to stop

00:24:22.480 the trolley. And on Kant's view, you don't have, you're not entitled to do that because that's not

00:24:27.840 treating him as having dignity. So to make sure that we don't treat people as a mere means, that's a way

00:24:36.320 of sort of setting, we might describe as boundaries around the kinds of things that we can do to other

00:24:41.420 human beings. And so it's going to rule out killing them, understandably. It's also going to rule out

00:24:46.320 trying to coerce them or manipulate them in a variety of ways. It's going to rule out trying to thwart or

00:24:53.060 get around the reason. This is why Kant thinks it's wrong to lie to people, for the most part, because

00:24:58.020 you're trying to manipulate their way of understanding the world. So those are all going to serve as sort of

00:25:03.240 foundational constraints on how we behave toward people and ourselves, because he thinks this applies

00:25:09.580 to us. But Kant says there's also other things that we need to do in order to treat people in a fully

00:25:16.360 respectful way and to really respect their dignity. And for Kant, he describes that as treating them in

00:25:22.460 his technical language as setters of ends or of people who have projects and interests of their own.

00:25:29.360 And for Kant, this plays out in a duty to sort of help people with their projects. So in a practical

00:25:35.860 example, let's suppose that you're driving home from work and you see somebody stopped on the side

00:25:40.440 of the road with a flat tire. You have a couple of choices here. One choice would be like, I think

00:25:44.880 I'll try to like run them down. So that would obviously be a violation of their dignity, treating

00:25:49.040 them as a mere means. But it's not just that, because you might think, huh, maybe I should stop and help

00:25:54.320 them. And to stop and help them is to respect them in a somewhat different way, but also really

00:26:00.420 important to respect them as someone who, you know, needs to get home, who has a flat tire and

00:26:05.680 could use a hand. And Kant thinks both of those are part of treating people with dignity.

00:26:10.520 And this can get tricky when you're trying to figure out, suss out, treating people as mere means

00:26:15.380 and treating them as an end. Because oftentimes our roles in society, particularly in the marketplace,

00:26:20.800 we are presenting ourselves as means, right? Like a carpenter is there to fix people's stuff,

00:26:25.020 right? Or you're a professor. So your means is, you know, people go to you to learn things.

00:26:30.380 What would Kant say, how do you figure out like, you know, when you've crossed the line where you're

00:26:34.380 using someone as a means, but then it's just, you're treating them just as a means and not as an end?

00:26:40.200 Yeah, that's a really good question. And it is really hard to figure out where the line is,

00:26:45.560 because sometimes it's kind of fuzzy. Like there's some really clear cases of treating someone as a

00:26:50.580 mere means where you're like, yeah, you're really just using that person. You're seeing them as

00:26:54.340 nothing more than a way to get what you want. And, but sometimes we're doing things like you

00:27:00.120 describe, like, you know, you, you have a project in your house, you need done, you need to hire a

00:27:03.820 plumber or a carpenter or someone, cause you don't have those skills. So is that treating them as a

00:27:07.600 mere means? Like that would be weird if that were true. And Kant says, no, what matters is whether

00:27:12.800 you're treating them like as just a way of fixing your leaking pipes, or are you also treating them

00:27:20.420 as a being with dignity? And some of this is going to play out on like, are you going to actually pay

00:27:25.300 the bill when they send it to you? Are you going to treat them respectfully when they come into your

00:27:29.740 house, treat them as like a person who is not just a plumber, but who has, you know, ends and desires

00:27:36.460 and projects of their own. And so it's subtle and become things really, really important. And I think we

00:27:43.540 often feel the difference. I think anyone who has ever worked in minimum wage jobs understands the

00:27:48.740 difference between a customer who actually respects you as a person and a customer who is just treating

00:27:55.300 you like you're nothing. And it's that difference that I think Kant is really after when he's talking

00:28:01.000 about treating people as a mere means and treating them as a means, but also as an end.

00:28:07.720 And this can even fuzz you with friendships. I think maybe some people have encountered this with

00:28:11.500 their friend, or maybe like they have like a longtime friend they haven't heard from a long time,

00:28:14.640 like, Hey, let's connect. You're like, Oh, great. This is a great friend I had from high school

00:28:18.440 wants to talk to me. And you get together and then he like springs a multi-level marketing pitch on you.

00:28:23.000 And you're like, Oh my gosh, I just got used. Like, I just feel, I feel gross.

00:28:27.700 Yeah. That is a common situation. Yeah. This idea, like what's going on there. So one way of

00:28:33.700 explaining it in Kantian terms is to say that your friend who has turned your, you know, you're,

00:28:38.520 you're hanging out your dinner together into a marketing pitch is like almost changed the terms

00:28:43.820 on your relationship unilaterally. So they're like, okay, I'm making this friendship into a

00:28:49.080 business relationship. And a business relationship is an entirely different kind of thing, of course.

00:28:53.740 And so when your friend just does this to you, like, I'm going to stop treating you as a friend

00:28:57.120 right now. I'm going to treat you as a possible, you know, business contact here. You feel like,

00:29:02.760 wait a second, my friend doesn't really value me as a friend. They're just seeing me as a way to make

00:29:06.600 money. And so that's a perfectly reasonable way to respond to that because your friend has just

00:29:12.040 changed your relationship in ways that you haven't signed onto. And because of that, you can't really

00:29:17.340 function as friends there. If every dinner is turning into a sales pitch of some kind, you're not

00:29:22.940 really friends, you're unwilling business partners. So that would be treating someone as a mere means.

00:29:28.480 And this fuzziness can, it gets even more complicated and complex in marriage. So here's an example

00:29:34.020 that I've seen play out. Wife doesn't like how disciplined her husband is. She thinks he's too

00:29:41.080 rigid, too inflexible, can't be spontaneous, et cetera. But this guy's discipline, it's what

00:29:46.960 allows him to be successful at work. It's something that helps him grow in his own telos. And the wife

00:29:52.700 even says, like, I appreciate that about him. Like, he's great. I love it. It helps our marriage. He gets

00:29:57.240 stuff done around the house. It allows us to, allows them to provide for our family. But that rigidity

00:30:02.400 just still bugs her. And she wants him to change. And she frames it the way like, well,

00:30:07.740 you need to loosen up for your own good. But really, it's for her. So she's not really thinking

00:30:12.520 about what's good for his end. She's more seeing him as a means to her happiness. So how to figure

00:30:19.680 out how to treat someone as an end, as having their own telos in a marriage, that can get hard to

00:30:25.400 us out as well. Very hard. Yeah. Because when we're in close relationships with people, there's

00:30:31.000 lots of opportunities to do this behavior. You know, everybody in a long-term friendship or

00:30:38.540 relationship or marriage, right, finds themselves in situations where they have all these very human

00:30:43.220 frustrations and annoyances. And the hard part in all of these cases is remembering how much you love

00:30:50.040 and value this person and that they are not yours to change or alter in any way. And trying to sort

00:30:56.860 of separate out in some ways what I want this person to be for my sake, from who they are and

00:31:04.760 who they want themselves to be. This is so difficult, but it makes all the difference for Kant in whether

00:31:11.100 you are really valuing them as an end in the way that he says we must, or just valuing them as,

00:31:17.560 you know, something useful to you. And what does Kant say, what do you do when there's people in our

00:31:22.780 lives where they present themselves merely as a means, right? Like that's it. Like they're,

00:31:29.760 I'm thinking maybe an influencer that shares all of their details of their private life and they

00:31:36.020 monetize it. And it just seems like everything they do is, it's not really, like it's, there's no

00:31:42.200 dignity in it. They're just trying to get money or whatever. Does Kant still say like, you have a duty to

00:31:47.040 still treat that person who's treating themselves as merely as a means, as an end?

00:31:52.040 Yeah, you do. So one of my favorite parts of Kant's ethics is that he has this really big and

00:31:58.900 important place for self-respect because the humanity formulation, all of those requirements

00:32:04.360 that you treat others with dignity applies to you too. You have to treat yourself with respect

00:32:10.360 and you have to ensure that others treat you with respect. And being able to treat yourself with

00:32:16.840 respect means sort of knowing your true value and living in accordance with it. So there are lots of

00:32:25.220 ways in which this can go wrong. And in many cases, it's not something the person could have controlled

00:32:32.940 and we wouldn't necessarily blame them for it. Because sometimes the reasons why people don't have

00:32:37.580 self-respect have to do with factors outside of them about the way that their family members

00:32:42.740 treated them or society has treated them. But Kant thinks there is a duty to act in a self-respecting

00:32:49.460 way. And there's a duty to treat others respectfully, even if they're not treating themselves respectfully.

00:32:58.080 So Kant thinks that this vice of like not treating yourself with enough self-respect is a vice for

00:33:03.400 Kant. He calls it servility. So the servile person either doesn't know their own value or they don't

00:33:08.600 really claim their own value. And interestingly, Kant thinks that arrogance is like sort of the flip

00:33:14.640 side of servility. It's also a failure of self-respect because both the arrogant person and the servile

00:33:20.940 person are making mistakes about the source of their own value. So that influencer, right, who really

00:33:27.040 thinks like, okay, my value is caught up in, you know, what kind of following I have or who advertises

00:33:33.500 on my site or all of that, they think that their worth is based on that. And so if they're doing

00:33:37.880 really well, they might be prone toward arrogance, thinking they're better than people because they

00:33:42.460 have influence that others don't, or they might be servile. They might think that they're worth less

00:33:48.040 than others. And Kant says, both of these are wrong, right? Because what gives you value,

00:33:53.020 what gives you your dignity is something that you have and nobody can take away from you and how many

00:34:00.400 likes you have or how many followers you have is irrelevant to it. So self-respect for Kant is about

00:34:06.820 sort of understanding what our value is and interacting with people accordingly.

00:34:14.400 Yeah. And he would even say in order for you to respect others, you have to respect yourself first.

00:34:18.380 Like you have to understand that. He does, right? Because you won't, if you're arrogant or servile,

00:34:23.420 if your self-image is bound up in your followers and you regard others in the same way, you're going

00:34:29.400 to be making mistakes in both directions. The only real way to act is to understand that the value that

00:34:34.840 we have is the same value as everybody else has. You can't, you cannot wish away your dignity or

00:34:41.360 correct. You can't lose it or waive it. It is something that you possess always, but we don't

00:34:47.680 always live up to it. We don't always treat others in accordance with the value they actually have.

00:34:52.160 And we don't always act ourselves in ways that accord with that value.

00:34:57.260 So you mentioned this idea of respect. One of the more, I think, really useful sections in your book

00:35:02.040 was talking about the difference between love and respect. And Kant says, these are two moral forces in

00:35:08.240 our lives that pull us in opposite directions. Let's talk about this. Like what did Kant mean by

00:35:13.120 love and respect? And then how does he think they pull us in opposite directions?

00:35:18.300 Yeah. So this is one of my, another favorite part of Kant. So Kant calls love and respect these two

00:35:24.000 sort of great moral forces, but he thinks they pull us in opposite directions. He says, love tells us to

00:35:30.080 come closer to people and respect tells us to keep our distance. And so an example that I think makes

00:35:36.060 this really clear, what he's getting at is what happens if you're, you know, you're walking around

00:35:40.060 someplace and you see somebody in public, a stranger who's crying or who's really upset and you don't

00:35:46.500 know what to do because you're like, should I help them? You know, they, they seem to be really upset.

00:35:50.160 Maybe there's something I can do, but you also worry that it's none of your business, that you might be

00:35:53.920 invading their privacy. This is a great example of the tension that Kant thinks we can face between love

00:35:59.720 and respect and Kant thinks like both of those are right. Like it is good to want to help people in

00:36:05.800 their troubles, but it is also really good to want to make sure that we're respecting their privacy and

00:36:10.540 their boundaries. So there's a tension here and it's just a tension in real human life. It's not

00:36:16.180 one that we can do away with in some ways. So yeah, it's not a problem we can easily solve, which kind of

00:36:21.600 makes sense because that like leaping stranger is a real problem. What do we do?

00:36:26.380 No, you probably encounter that with your friends. Maybe you hear that your friend is going through a hard

00:36:30.540 time. Maybe they lost their job. They're getting a divorce. The love part is like, I want to reach out to

00:36:34.700 them and help them out. But the respect is like, well, maybe that's going to make him feel less than, or maybe

00:36:38.880 just wants his privacy during this time. And you never know what to do. Does Kant have any advice on how to

00:36:44.600 figure that out? Does he have like a rule that we can follow to know when we lean on love or lean on

00:36:49.340 respect? No, sadly, no. I'm not sure anyone does, but there's a lot of value to identifying

00:36:56.140 what's important here. So I think one of the things I like about this, this idea of attention

00:37:02.520 is that we recognize that both matter because sometimes love for people can make us overstep

00:37:09.100 boundaries. Like maybe, you know, someone is in pain and we just want their pain to stop because

00:37:13.320 we care about them, but also because it's bothering us. And so sometimes it becomes more about us than

00:37:19.100 about them helping does or giving advice. Or sometimes, you know, are like, oh no, no, I don't want to get in

00:37:25.120 the way. It's just like us being lazy or selfish too, that we're not really moved enough by love.

00:37:30.440 So I think that a Kantian answer or really any answer is got to be sensitive to things like

00:37:34.980 context or relationships or like your capacities. Like, can you actually help? You know, is the

00:37:40.440 person like about to go into a job interview? You know, are they acting like they're trying to pull

00:37:45.540 themselves together? In which case maybe you should leave them alone and let them like pull themselves

00:37:49.860 together. So there's got to be some space for judgment in this case. Like what could I really

00:37:55.340 do here? What would really be helpful here that wouldn't be overly intrusive? And I think that

00:38:01.240 answer is going to change depending on what circumstances you face. And so a lot of it is

00:38:06.000 going to be trying to get this right, trying to be caring and considerate without overstepping what

00:38:12.620 Kant thinks are morally significant boundaries between ourselves and other people.

00:38:16.860 So it sounds like you have to use some Aristotelian phronesis and practical wisdom to figure this

00:38:21.780 stuff out.

00:38:22.660 Yeah, I think everybody needs it. It needs some Aristotelian practical wisdom. No one can sort

00:38:27.740 of do without it because it really is about understanding what is at stake in the situation

00:38:32.940 that you're facing and figuring out how to act accordingly in accordance with what really

00:38:37.920 matters there.

00:38:39.520 Continuing on this idea of love and respect, Kant has a lot to say about contempt. And I've heard

00:38:44.920 contemptibility described as a state of being both unlikable, so like maybe you just have

00:38:49.720 a really rough personality, and incompetent, right? So skill-wise, you're not good at anything.

00:38:55.460 And so contemptible people, they're hard to either love or respect. But Kant says contempt

00:39:00.680 is one of those vices we really, really need to avoid. Why is that? And then did he offer

00:39:05.400 any advice on loving and respecting people who are unlovable and unrespectable?

00:39:10.640 Yeah, he has a lot to say about this. In fact, I kind of wonder if Kant struggled with

00:39:15.740 this himself. At one point, he's like, it's really hard sometimes not to hold people in

00:39:19.800 contempt, but we can't. Because contempt, he thinks it's a vice, but he also thinks it

00:39:25.220 violates a duty that we owe to people. And the duty in question is to sort of recognize

00:39:31.220 them as being capable of something more. So to hold someone in contempt on Kant's view,

00:39:40.120 and there's different ways of thinking about contempt, is basically to see them as sort

00:39:44.580 of beneath us in a way that means like they're worthless in a way that makes them not even

00:39:50.340 part of a human community. And Kant thinks that is never true of any of us. No matter what

00:39:57.040 you have done, how horrible a person you are, you can never like give up or waive your right

00:40:02.360 to be a member of the moral community. So we owe it to people to treat them with at least

00:40:08.900 basic respect. So this is compatible with still like, you know, punishing people and putting them

00:40:14.740 in jail and being mad at them. It doesn't mean that we can't do those things. But I think it's

00:40:19.980 nicely encompassed when we think of like telling someone like that they need to do better.

00:40:24.500 So this idea, do better, suggests that A, you're not doing as well as you could,

00:40:30.120 but also that you could really do better. That you acknowledge that the person is capable of more.

00:40:36.780 They're not hopeless. They're not worthless. They're not stupid. They might be acting that way,

00:40:41.520 but they're not really that way, or at least they could be otherwise. And I think Kant thinks that

00:40:47.540 this is the way in which we are morally required to see people and interact with them.

00:40:53.860 And it's really hard sometimes, but we must turn ourselves into the kind of people that are

00:41:00.100 capable of seeing someone else's humanity. This idea is all over Martin Luther King's sermons

00:41:06.080 in ways that are really beautiful, like the way that he sort of frames this. He has this wonderful

00:41:10.400 sermon called Loving Your Enemies, where he's like, you know, liking your enemies is impossible,

00:41:14.860 but you can love your enemies because you're capable of seeing them as being something else.

00:41:20.880 And I think that's very much what Kant is after with contempt and his insistence that we can't

00:41:25.960 hold people in contempt. We must see them as capable of being better and we must hold them

00:41:31.260 accountable for being better.

00:41:34.500 And this could be tricky again, because this kind of goes back to the love and respect. Like,

00:41:37.740 how do you know when you should step in and tell someone, hey, I think you could do better.

00:41:41.800 And how do you do it in a way where it lands and you're not overstepping that boundary? Again,

00:41:45.420 this can get hard. It can. Yeah. So, I mean, Kant thinks that in some sense, we can't make other

00:41:52.840 people better because to make yourself better is to commit internally to being a better person.

00:41:59.060 And like, I can't make you decide that you're going to have a goodwill and you can't do that to

00:42:03.780 me because it's in some ways a personal choice. But that doesn't mean that we can't influence each

00:42:09.740 other or that we can't tell people that they are failing in our expectations of them. And in fact,

00:42:16.180 not doing that might be a failure of self-respect. So like insisting that people behave better

00:42:22.460 is something that we're entitled to do. And that's partly because we get to require that other people

00:42:29.100 do their part and perform their own duties and don't treat us badly. And so it's a way of holding

00:42:35.380 other people accountable for being better than they are. And so I think Kant thinks of contempt

00:42:40.980 is like just writing people off. And that's the thing that he thinks we must not do, however

00:42:47.220 difficult it is. But it doesn't mean that like some ways are going to be more effective than others.

00:42:52.040 You know, whether calling someone out on a moral failing is going to be useful or whether it's

00:42:58.140 appropriate is going to depend a lot on what the failing is and what the context is. He thinks that

00:43:03.440 friends have a duty to point out each other's flaws to each other. This is one of the things

00:43:07.380 about friendship. But he also recognizes that it threatens respect because it makes people feel

00:43:15.200 like they're not respected. Their friend doesn't respect them and they get all worried about this.

00:43:19.600 And so he clearly thinks it has to be done carefully.

00:43:23.400 Yeah. I imagine they do some like introspection too. It's like, am I calling this friend out because

00:43:27.740 it just makes me feel better? Because it makes them less than and me and the superior,

00:43:31.440 that self-conceit. Or am I just doing this? Yeah. Like you got to constantly say, don't do that.

00:43:37.100 That's not good. But you have to do it where you actually, you're trying to help this person out.

00:43:40.460 You're not trying to gratify some sort of self-conceit.

00:43:43.620 Yeah. That's a really important point because sometimes we are just doing it as a way of

00:43:47.260 expressing our own superiority. Like you're terrible. I'm great. Even if we don't put it in those terms,

00:43:51.980 if that's what we're doing, then for Kant, that is actually vice. That's like me being smug or

00:43:57.340 like self-righteous or something. And Kant thinks that we have no business doing that because first

00:44:02.860 of all, we have as many flaws as the next person does. And it's just a way of trying to, it's not

00:44:09.200 really about them. It's more just, yeah, about making us feel good. Let's talk about gratitude.

00:44:14.660 Kant had a lot to say about this. He called ingratitude a satanic vice. Why do you call it a

00:44:20.280 satanic vice? Yeah. So I'm not sure if I know exactly why, but it's very interesting, 0.79

00:44:24.580 but it shows how seriously he took it. So ingratitude, gratitude for Kant is a duty and

00:44:30.440 ingratitude is a vice of hatred. And the hatred is the part that makes it satanic because what

00:44:37.700 we're hating, he thinks, when we're not being grateful is we're hating somebody else's expression

00:44:43.640 of love or expression of care or concern. Now, sometimes when other people are helping,

00:44:50.620 they're not really trying to help us. Like sometimes it's not really caring. And so setting

00:44:54.100 those aside, let's suppose someone really does try to do something kind and we're not

00:45:00.240 grateful. Kant says that when we're hating that, and he recognizes that it's hard because

00:45:05.360 nobody likes being dependent. Nobody likes having to rely on other people. But in being

00:45:10.320 ungrateful, we are sort of rejecting somebody else's really good act. And that's what I think

00:45:17.720 Kant means when he calls it satanic. That it's a rejection of something good, which is beneficence.

00:45:23.400 So even if someone helps you and it's not very helpful, you should probably still thank them

00:45:28.620 because they're trying to show love towards you. Yeah, probably. So with the caveat that sometimes

00:45:34.760 when people are trying to be helpful, sometimes they really are trying and just failing, not

00:45:39.680 through any faults of their own. But sometimes when they're trying to help, they may not actually

00:45:43.640 be trying to help. They might be trying to impose their will on you or something. So, but if we're

00:45:47.900 talking about cases where the person really is trying their best to help, even if it fails,

00:45:52.500 it doesn't work, like they've tried to buy you a gift that they really think you will like and you

00:45:56.960 just don't, then ingratitude is advice. Because there, you're not marking out the value of the

00:46:03.820 thing that they've done for you. Gotcha. And again, this can get tricky because you may be like,

00:46:08.280 okay, well, even with the gift thing, will they give this because for me or was it to help

00:46:11.980 sort of satisfy something in them, the giver? Yeah.

00:46:16.020 This can get tricky. Yeah, Kant has so many interesting things to say about beneficence.

00:46:21.340 But if I'm doing something supposedly nice for someone else, but it's really just about me

00:46:26.120 because I want to look good or like, I don't know, like I'm donating money, but I'm doing it for the

00:46:29.040 tax break or, you know, for, so I can get in somebody's brochure. That's the wrong reasons.

00:46:34.120 And Kant would even say that's not even really an act of beneficence as he understands it. It's not

00:46:39.140 fulfilling the duty. I'm just like doing it for my own purposes.

00:46:41.980 So you should still do it. Like he doesn't want people not to give away money or help change

00:46:45.780 flat tires, but beneficence for him is doing it for the right reasons because the other person

00:46:52.060 is worth your effort. And if that's, what's being expressed by the gift or the action,

00:46:57.980 then Kant thinks that means the response of gratitude.

00:47:01.760 So Kant also had a lot to say about good manners, which is kind of weird. Why,

00:47:05.620 why would like a systematic philosopher talk about table manners, but he thought manners could help

00:47:10.940 cultivate virtue in individuals and communities. And you've actually, you've written a lot about

00:47:15.180 manners. So let's talk about why did Kant think good manners were important part of our life?

00:47:20.540 Yeah. So Kant seems to think that good manners matter for a couple of different reasons.

00:47:27.100 One, he thinks that they will actually make us better in some sense. So he often says,

00:47:33.560 and this is going to make him sound Aristotelian, like sort of Aristotle's sort of famous for saying,

00:47:37.880 well, you become, you know, a generous person by doing generous actions on the long lines of you

00:47:42.920 become a builder by building things. And Kant seems to go along with this. Like you become the kind of

00:47:47.980 person who treats other people with respect by treating other people with respect. So there's

00:47:52.100 that, like it helps us become better. But Kant, I think also has sort of a bigger role for manners

00:47:57.760 in his life or what he calls the social graces. And that's because they help us kind of create

00:48:03.220 a vision of a world that we should all be signing onto, even if it's a hard thing to live up to.

00:48:10.440 So this is a sense in which we might think like it's a kind of pretending in some sense,

00:48:14.240 he calls it a beautiful illusion. So you might be like, oh, well, this is just like deceptive or

00:48:18.760 something. But I don't think Kant thinks it is because I think he thinks we all know what's going

00:48:22.340 on. So one example I like to use is in the case of like sports games. And so sports have a lot of rules

00:48:28.940 about how players have to interact with each other and with the referees and with the fans and all of

00:48:33.160 that. And those rules impose certain kinds of behavioral norms in circumstances where it can

00:48:39.200 just be hard to maintain those. So players are supposed to shake hands with each other, right?

00:48:43.900 They're supposed to go along with what the ref says, whether or not they agree with it. There's

00:48:47.340 all kinds of norms of behavior. And we have those in place because they create an environment in which

00:48:54.600 people sort of remember that they're playing a game in some way, and they can still interact with

00:48:59.940 each other as human beings. And I think Kant thinks it's crucial for us to remember in some sense

00:49:05.700 what we as a community are about. And manners are a way of doing that, right? A society that doesn't

00:49:12.160 care about those forms of social interactions is a society that doesn't really care about getting

00:49:18.360 better in some way.

00:49:19.820 And I think too, manners help you develop the self-control necessary to create

00:49:25.440 that society, right? To live a Kantian life requires us to sometimes refrain from doing

00:49:30.720 things. It requires self-control. And manners is like a tool we can use to help us strengthen

00:49:35.700 that self-control muscle.

00:49:37.280 Yes. Yeah. So if you're in a situation where there's someone that you really don't like,

00:49:40.580 but you need to like shake hands with them and make small talk with them. And it's not like

00:49:43.900 they're so evil that you shouldn't do this at all, that you should cut them, but you must.

00:49:46.860 Kant's like, yeah, well, you must, right? And in this way of being like, 0.99

00:49:49.820 I'm going to still interact with this person that I don't much like because it's good manners,

00:49:53.920 that is, I think for Kant, a way of making ourselves better, constraining ourselves and

00:49:59.580 doing it in the service of treating a person respectfully. Even if we're not feeling it at

00:50:04.580 the moment, it still matters because it's still a way of interacting with them on the terms that

00:50:10.460 Kant thinks we should be interacting with them.

00:50:12.980 Yeah. It helps us treat, again, people as an end, not merely as a means, right? So you do these

00:50:17.660 sort of niceties with the barista, right? Who's there to make you coffee, but you say, hello,

00:50:23.080 you say, how was your day? Because you're doing that because it's a way to recognize I see you as

00:50:27.080 an equal human being, just like I am.

00:50:29.260 Right. Yeah. So I mean, Kant's like, yeah, this is really hard sometimes. Like sometimes it's just

00:50:33.740 really hard to like not dislike or hate people, but we've got to get over that. And manners are a

00:50:39.660 way in which we help ourselves get over it. And so I think he would say those conventions matter

00:50:44.360 because they do kind of hold us into patterns of behavior that exemplify better relationships

00:50:51.400 with each other. Real respect. Even if we're not feeling it, the handshake, the conversation,

00:50:56.540 the greeting, the barista is a way of exemplifying true respect.

00:51:01.160 Well, Karen, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book

00:51:04.360 and your work?

00:51:05.560 Yes. So I have a website. I teach at Georgetown University and the philosophy department

00:51:10.360 there has a website and I have a link to a page that says more about me and my reading.

00:51:15.480 And the book is part of Oxford's guides to the good life series. There are several books in this

00:51:20.160 series, all of which on different figures that are also really fun to read about. So I encourage

00:51:24.920 folks to keep reading in that series too.

00:51:27.820 Fantastic. Well, Karen Storer, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:51:30.080 Thank you very much, Brett. It's been fun.

00:51:32.280 My guest today was Karen Storer. She's the author of the book,

00:51:34.620 Choosing Freedom, A Kantian Guide to Life. It's available on amazon.com.

00:51:37.820 Check out our show notes at aom.is slash kant. We can find links to resources. We can delve

00:51:42.160 deeper into this topic.

00:51:50.360 Well, that wraps up another edition of the A1 podcast. The Art of Manless podcast hosts guests

00:51:54.800 from a wide range of fields so you can improve each and every area of your life. One week,

00:51:59.220 we could be discussing fitness supplements. Another, the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant.

00:52:03.140 If you enjoy the ever-fresh variety of the A1 podcast, consider taking a minute to leave

00:52:07.720 the show or review. I greatly appreciate all the generous folks who do so. And if you'd like

00:52:12.200 to enjoy ad-free episodes of the A1 podcast, you could do so on Stitcher Premium. Head over to

00:52:16.240 stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code MANLINES at checkout for a free month trial. Once you're

00:52:20.680 signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android and iOS, and you can start enjoying ad-free episodes

00:52:24.580 of the A1 podcast. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay

00:52:29.100 reminding you to not listen to the A1 podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:52:37.720 A1 a podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast. A1 podcast.

The Art of Manliness - March 22, 2023

A Kantian Guide to Life

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript