Poverty is a Temptation to Vice (Kant)

It is not directly a duty to seek a competence for one’s self; but indirectly it may be so; namely, in order to guard against poverty which is a great temptation to vice. But then it is not my happiness but my morality, to maintain which in its integrity is at once my end and my duty.

~Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics

This is an interesting idea that Plato talks about as well. Kant suggests that it may indirectly be our duty to make an adequate amount of money for ourselves. Sometimes, we associate the pursuit of money only as a vice. It is true, that greed is to be avoided, but we must make enough money in order to be able to be self-reliant. Both Kant and Plato warn that poverty makes it extremely difficult to act virtuously. Plato further says that extreme wealth leads to vice because it may tempt us to be indolent. 

Kant makes a key distinction here, though. He says that we should pursue wealth not for our own happiness, but for the previous reason given: so that we have the freedom to act virtuously. 

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Shakespeare On Alcohol (Macbeth)

Drink, sir, is a great

Provoker of three things.

Marry, sir, nose painting, sleep, and

Urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;

It provokes the desire, but it takes

Away the performance: therefore, much drink

May be said to be an equivocator with lechery:

It makes him, and it mars him; it sets

Him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,

And disheartens him; makes him stand to, and

Not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him

In a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

~William Shakespeare, Macbeth

What good is alcohol? According to Shakespeare, not much. When it comes to lechery (lust), he says all its effects cancel out. What you can count on is that you'll urinate a lot, your nose will turn red, and then you'll fall asleep. 

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What is Humanity's Goal? (Nietzsche)

A thousand goals have there been so far, for there have been a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. Humanity still has no goal.

~Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


A good question indeed. What is humanity's goal? What are we working towards? All wise men throughout the ages have warned us that if a man doesn't have a goal - a noble purpose on which to affix his thoughts - then he will waffle around in mediocrity, never attaining greatness in anything. Without a lofty ideal on which to focus his energy, he will fall prey to worries, self pityings and complaints about his situation. 


Isn't the same true for all of humanity? If we have no goal that we are striving towards, then what do we have left to focus on? We can complain that people are hungry, sick and dying, we can fight our fellow nations over resources, or we can lament that society isn't running along as smoothly as we all think it ought to be. But if humanity focuses all its energy on these petty problems, what else is there? What would we do if all these problem were solved? Perhaps we should figure that out, and begin working towards that goal. The fact is: hunger, or sickness, or suffering will never be completely eradicated, so if we spend all our energy on these things, then we will never find time to accomplish anything else. 


What if a man suffered from a chronic ache in his leg, and he declared that he was never going to spend time doing anything else until his leg was free from pain? If this was his attitude, then he would never achieve anything, his leg might never get cured, and everyone around him would grow tired of his incessant complaining and self-centeredness. 


And is this the way humanity wishes to conduct itself? 


We have seen some flashes of the results that humanity is capable of when it focuses on a goal. The Soviets and America both made it their goal to beat the other to the moon, and this was achieved in a remarkably short period of time. What have we achieved lately that even compares to that? Why does there need to be a competition for this to occur? When will we stop competing against each other and begin working together? As Nietzsche says, a thousand nations have had a thousand goals, but what is humanity's goal?



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Communism Leads to Laziness (Marx)

The following idea is from The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx, published in 1848. This was a highly influential book that continues to shape social, economic, and political thought to this day. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of The Communist Manifesto.

It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.

~Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

This has been the primary criticism of communism since day one, and Marx himself acknowledges this in his Manifesto. For if not to acquire wealth and property, then what will motivate men to work? 

Marx's retort is as follows:

According to this, [the upper class] ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. 

I'm not sure I can agree totally with Marx on this point. Capitalists like Buffett and Trump, who use their capital to acquire even more of it, would probably balk at the idea that they "do not work". Sure, they don't do any physical labor, but they do the work at which they are best: to allocate capital. And that takes a lot of networking, negotiation, and analysis of businesses and investments. 

They also create a lot of jobs, and invest in new technologies and businesses where they see future growth potentials. Capitalism concentrates the wealth into the hands of people who have in the past been the best at putting that capital to good use. 

It may seem that I am sympathizing with the capitalistic philosophy: so I am. I am also sympathetic to Marx's criticisms of it, but I don't think it is fair to demonize it the way he does. Capitalism is no doubt a huge driver of innovation. Without it we may never have developed such unbelievable technologies like electricity, automobiles, airplanes, televisions, internet, cell phones, etc. etc. 

Unfortunately, the lower classes cannot see this. They have access to all these wonderful things, and their lives are substantially improved over their ancestors of 100 years ago. But the only thing they can see is that they have less than the upper class, and so they cry out "it's not fair". And perhaps it isn't. Some people get a head start on others in life because of the blind luck of the social class they were born into. 

Lots of sticky issues here. How do we harness the obvious power of capitalism to continue to lift the whole of humanity ever upwards, while at the same time making sure that all of our fellow contemporary humans are all getting a fair shot?

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Men Always Wish to Acquire More (Machiavelli)

This idea is from The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli, published in 1532. This was a highly influential book that continues to shape political and social thought to this day. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of The Prince.

The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame.

~Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

It's a curse of human nature: no matter what our circumstances happen to be, we will in short time become accustomed to and eventually dissatisfied with those circumstances. We will then not only fear to lose what we already have, but strive to acquire more.

But perhaps it's not such a curse after all. If men easily became satisfied with their current conditions, how would anything great ever be achieved? Would we have built the magnificent civilization that we behold around us? Machiavelli seems to agree. 

He says, though, that when men try to acquire by any means, then there is folly and blame. I think this is an important quote, because so often I hear Machiavelli's philosophy summed up as "the ends justify the means". I do not understand how anyone could come to this conclusion if they had actually read any of Machiavelli. 

Machiavelli was a brilliant strategist who was also quite pragmatic. He oftentimes makes harsh observations about human nature, which sometimes turns people off. Above all, however, he wished to teach us how to rule societies and get along with each other in what he saw as a cold world. 

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Action From Principle Creates Change (Thoreau)

This idea is from Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, written in about 1849. This was a highly influential book that shaped the thought of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., each of whom used the principle of civil disobedience to create massive social change. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of Civil Disobedience.


If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divided States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

~Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience


Thoreau is talking here about dissatisfaction with our government. Most of the time, when we feel our government is treating us unfairly, we are content to whine and complain about it. Or we might construct elaborate conspiracy theories that we discuss with our friends. We are content to lament that we are victims. "The Man" is always shortchanging this demographic or marginalizing that ethnic group. What we fail to remember is that "The Man" is ourselves. We are just a large group of humans doing our best to keep a semblance of order and to make things fair for everyone.

If you think that the government is acting unfairly, or has become inundated with corruption, then it is your responsibility to do something about it. After all, this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I love Thoreau's analogy about the neighbor who has cheated you out of a dollar. Would you go knocking door-to-door collecting signatures petitioning him to give it back? Perhaps you could stand at the corner of the post-office urging people to honk if they agree that he has cheated you? Or would you actually confront him directly? Maybe you ought to bring some friends. If everything else fails, you would no doubt refuse to do business with him ever again.

Thoreau tells us that a single man, acting from principle, can create massive social change. Most men never do, for fear of retribution. It's true that Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King all spent time in jail, but as Thoreau says, "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."


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You Are a Slave to Your Passions (Shakespeare)

This idea is from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, published in 1604. Hamlet is widely considered to be Shakespeare's best and most popular play. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart
~Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act III Scene II)

As humans, we love to believe that we are rational creatures.

The truth, though, is that even our reason is a slave to our passions. We mostly "reason" in such a way as to justify our passions. The next time you are criticized for anything, you can see this in action. Your powers of reasoning will always come up with reasons to justify yourself, whether the criticism is warranted or not. Your powers of reasoning will then come up with reasons to criticize the other person. Sound perfectly reasonable? Yes, from a certain point of view - from the point of view of our Darwinian impulses to look good in the eyes of others so we can maintain or raise our position in the social hierarchy and attract the best mates and friends. But are we destined to always be slaves to our genes' blind drive to replicate? How then, are we different from the animals? Are we not destined to rebel from and rise above these gross tendencies?

Our passions dictate what we reason about. This is why "pure reason" has always been the goal of any earnest philosopher. Pure reason is reason that is unbiased by our passions. Perhaps the only system of pure reason that humanity has yet come up with is mathematics. It doesn't matter what initial biases two people initially hold, if they perform the mathematics correctly, they will arrive at the same conclusion. (Of course, this depends on whether their premises and axioms are free from bias, which is a whole other can of worms!)

This is why mathematics has been called "the language of the gods", and when men are ready for it, perhaps we can reason like gods too.

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