Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Kant vs. Machiavelli
We have spent the last few classes dwelling on Immanuel Kant’s reasoning on why it is never permissible to lie. Kant believes that there is never a proper time to lie since it is impossible to predict the outcome of your fabrication. A philosopher that would have argued with Kant about his theory is Niccolo Machiavelli. In his book The Prince, specifically book XVIII, Machiavelli recognizes that a prince who is faithful to his word, regardless of the situation, will be admired by the public, but that the honest prince is not always the most successful. Machiavelli then states that any promise that leaves a prince at a disadvantage should be broken. One of Machiavelli’s strongest arguments is that a prince must always appear virtuous, and the argument applies in the case of lying. The public needs to think that their leader upholds his or her side of deals, but the leader should secretly be making choices that benefit the country. Machiavelli is not saying that the prince should break promises that weaken him personally, but those which weaken his country. Kant would be outraged that a person in the eye of the public was supporting such actions. Regardless of how extreme a situation could be, Kant believes that honesty is always the best policy. In class we kept on reviewing ‘what if’ situations, trying to find an exception to Kant’s rule, but it seems to be loophole free. What if Anne Frank was hiding in your basement and Nazi’s come looking for her? Well, you don’t know the Nazi’s intentions, so you should tell her whereabouts. Kant believes that lying does more harm than good, even if your lie isn’t caught at the moment you say it. It is sad that we live in a world where the ‘honest prince’ is not always the most successful, yet lies can be used as a necessary cushion, protecting the public from information that they are not yet ready to grasp. Another attempted loophole in Kant’s thinking is that you don’t know if the person you are talking to upholds the same moral choices that you do. It is not as if people walk around with a sign saying ‘I think its okay to lie, regardless of the situation’ taped on their back. I guess that Kant expects us to have a positive attitude towards other humans and hope that they have the same respect for us as we do for them. I understand where Kant is coming from, since by lying to somebody you purposefully break the trust they just instilled in you. Although I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to live a life lie-free, as Kant suggest, perhaps readers will attempt to emit unnecessary lies from their everyday life after reading him.
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I agree with you, but I find it rather difficult to compare Kant to Machiavelli. The reason being is because they discuss two entirely different things. While Machiavelli is detailing the way in which a prince should rule to maintain and or gain power. Kant is trying to do something completely different in his book “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals,” he is trying to explain human nature and the how the rules should be established so that they are not only maxims but instead they can be universal laws. I understand how you can think that what Kant would say is “____” i.e. saying lying or breaking of one’s promise is unacceptable and not moral. But even Machiavelli doesn’t even think that an ideal price is moral… instead it’s only important to appear as virtuous and moral.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your point on the dichotomy of whether there is such thing as a virtuous lie. I completely agree that it is very sad that we don't live in a world where the honest prince is successful. I feel like the public's inability to grasp the truth directly interferes with my understanding of the world and people which, on the most selfish level, bothers me. Your example of whether or not to lie to the Nazis is a perfect representation of where Kant's claim that there is universal moral imperatives such as not lying goes awry, bringing doubt that I can take his idea seriously.
ReplyDeleteI think you raise some interesting points. One with which I disagree, however, is your apprehension to moral action on the basis you cannot know whether someone else shares your morality. If you believe in a universal reality or one rooted in reason, you must assume all other rational beings will share your morality. When you cannot assume those around you are acting rationally, this poses an entirely different moral dilemma. How can you be (or how are you) responsible for the immorality or irrationality around you? I don't have a good answer, but it is something I feel deserves a careful one.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed strange how Kant's maxims in practice seem to fail in comparison to Machiavelli's. Logically, the class and others have tried to find exceptions to his rules against lying on a rational basis and failed. But it is interesting to observe that the dishonest politician and liars in general seem to perform just fine while ignoring Kant's rules. Is there some logical mistake in Kant's argument that everyone has somehow overlooked? Or does fate simply tend to support the decisions of liars? Somehow, I get the feeling that we'll never know. At least in my lifetime.
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