Kant was the quintessential expression of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, the faith in man’s reason, the right to dignity, and the subsequent
notion of self-determination, national or otherwise. In his work on ethics, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, he declares that man “is
not a thing.”[2] Published in 1785, four years before the start
of the French Revolution, Kant’s thinking demonstrates how far the Canadian
government under Harper – especially in its treatment of Omar Khadr - has
drifted away from Enlightenment values.
Showing posts with label Omar Khadr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Omar Khadr. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Harper and Omar Khadr read Kant: A Tweet
Now, I say, man and,
in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as
a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will. In all his actions, whether they are directed
toward himself or toward other rational beings, he must always be regarded at
the same time as an end.[1]
Friday, October 5, 2012
Ricoeur critiques Harper: some tweets
Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was a stellar French-protestant philosopher
and theologian who taught from “the middle”.
The following text is taken from his Fallible
Man (1965) [L’Homme Faillible,
1960] in which he analyzes the relationship between man’s fallibility and his “capacity”
for evil. In a number of ways he follows in the footsteps of St. Augustine and Montaigne.
---
Re: Ideologies of
Right and Left (Canada’s polarized politics)
Man is not intermediate because he is between angel and animal; he is
intermediate within himself, within his selves.
He is intermediate because he is a mixture, and a mixture because he
brings about mediations. His ontological
characteristic of being-intermediate consists precisely in that his act of
existing is the very act of bringing about mediations between all the
modalities and all the levels of reality within him and outside him. ... In short, for man,
being-intermediate is mediating.[1]
---
Re:
Omar Khadr
If man is a means between being and nothingness, it is primarily
because he brings about “mediations” in things; his intermediate place is
primarily his function as a mediator of the infinite and finite in things.[2]
---
Re:
China and the Nexen Case
But in their turn, the relations of domination, which spring from the
system of appropriating (private, collective, or State) the means of
production, continue only because they are recognized and guaranteed by
institutions sanctioned by an authority that is ultimately political. That
is so true that the relations of socio-economic domination can be changed only
by transforming the political structures of the power that puts the seal of
institution on all the technological, economic, and social forms of man’s power
over man. [3]
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