Kant and friendship
When you love a friend, you love, among other things, what you do together. The "together" is something not in your mind, not in your friend's mind. Nor is it in your or your friend's will. Nor is it the sum of your will plus the other's will. It is, in a sense, between the two of you. It is something both of you possess. You both engage, for example, in conversation: the quintessential activity of friends. Both of you experience and share in one and the same conversation, just as you share one and the same friendship. In fact, conversation and friendship can exist only by being shared in common. To regard friendship as good is to regard as a public thing that which cannot be reduced to one individual's will or another's, nor to the summation of their two wills.
There is no room for such public goods as conversation, friendship in Kant's conception of a pure will. Two friends have two wills. According to Kant, they can respect each other's will. And in so doing, they are acknowledging each other's true worth or goodness. But they cannot attach this respect to public things, like friendship and conversation. For such things are not properties of my will or your will. I don't possess my friendship to you in the manner that I possess my will, for our friendship is not identical with my will no is in my will or a part of my will. Therefore, according to Kant's logic, friendship does not deserve respect: only the will does, and friendship is not a property of my will.
I confess that I haven't read what Kant has to say regarding friendship, but based on what he says about respect I think that he would divide it from the pleasure associated with friendship. One who attempts to think in Kantian terms about the enjoyment that comes with friendship, will be required to say that this joy is the result of the satisfaction of an inclination, and satisfying an inclination, for Kant, is always enjoying the product of our activity rather an enjoyment of the activity itself (in this way he agrees with Epicurus). So for Kant, the pleasure or enjoyment you take in that activities that characterize friendship is not an appreciation of conversation or what-have-you as good in itself, for it cannot be identified with respectful regard for the other person. Rather, that enjoyment is the satisfaction of a self-regarding inclination. The self-regarding nature of Kantian enjoyment of friendship is even clearer when we see that enjoyment as contributing toward happiness. The pursuit of happiness, for Kant, is at best amoral: it is concerned with attaining a feeling of contentment. To one who makes happiness his or her goal, all else --be it one's reason or will or that of others-- is to be regarded merely in terms of how it is instrumenal toward the production of contented feelings.
Of course, a Kantian can protest that such pleasure can be concomitant with respect. He would propose that you can respect the person while recognizing that the friendly activities give rise to pleasure. But they are not the same. When you enjoy a good friendship, for Kant, you are not appreciating what you share with the other person. You are getting pleasure in one public thing while respecting two persons (yourself and the other).
This problem with friendship illustrates how, with Kant's division of human appetite into inclination and respect, public goods disappear.
There is no room for such public goods as conversation, friendship in Kant's conception of a pure will. Two friends have two wills. According to Kant, they can respect each other's will. And in so doing, they are acknowledging each other's true worth or goodness. But they cannot attach this respect to public things, like friendship and conversation. For such things are not properties of my will or your will. I don't possess my friendship to you in the manner that I possess my will, for our friendship is not identical with my will no is in my will or a part of my will. Therefore, according to Kant's logic, friendship does not deserve respect: only the will does, and friendship is not a property of my will.
I confess that I haven't read what Kant has to say regarding friendship, but based on what he says about respect I think that he would divide it from the pleasure associated with friendship. One who attempts to think in Kantian terms about the enjoyment that comes with friendship, will be required to say that this joy is the result of the satisfaction of an inclination, and satisfying an inclination, for Kant, is always enjoying the product of our activity rather an enjoyment of the activity itself (in this way he agrees with Epicurus). So for Kant, the pleasure or enjoyment you take in that activities that characterize friendship is not an appreciation of conversation or what-have-you as good in itself, for it cannot be identified with respectful regard for the other person. Rather, that enjoyment is the satisfaction of a self-regarding inclination. The self-regarding nature of Kantian enjoyment of friendship is even clearer when we see that enjoyment as contributing toward happiness. The pursuit of happiness, for Kant, is at best amoral: it is concerned with attaining a feeling of contentment. To one who makes happiness his or her goal, all else --be it one's reason or will or that of others-- is to be regarded merely in terms of how it is instrumenal toward the production of contented feelings.
Of course, a Kantian can protest that such pleasure can be concomitant with respect. He would propose that you can respect the person while recognizing that the friendly activities give rise to pleasure. But they are not the same. When you enjoy a good friendship, for Kant, you are not appreciating what you share with the other person. You are getting pleasure in one public thing while respecting two persons (yourself and the other).
This problem with friendship illustrates how, with Kant's division of human appetite into inclination and respect, public goods disappear.
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