Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

In a 1994 essay, Alan Gewirth (pictured here) admitted that Kant's argument to the categorical imperative had flaws, and he attempted a patch-up job. In a 2007 book, another philosopher Jesse Prinz, reconstructed Gewirth's reconstruction of what Kant might have meant. In Prinz' version it has an economical two premises, everything else is a conclusion.  I present the Prinz version without further comment, except for one bracketed correction. P1. I am an agent. P2. If I am an agent, I accept that freedom and well-being are necessary for me. C1. Therefore, I accept that I must have freedom and well-being. (From P1 and P2.) C2. Therefore, I accept that it is impermissible to not have freedom and well-being. (From C1, because its denial is the contradiction of that premise.) C3. Therefore, I accept that it is impermissible for others to remove or interfere with my freedom and well-being. (From C2.) C4. Therefore, I accept that others ought to refrain f...

Last week I mentioned three philosophical arguments that concern very different subjects (and have very different advocates) but that have this in common: their critics think them tautological. Under the prodding of a commenter, I'd like to be more specific about one of them today. Some people argue that belief in God is necessary, and thus that God's existence must be postulated even if His existence cannot be proven, because He serves as the foundation of moral behavior. Let us call this argument FFM (faith for morals). The critics say this is tautological. Does God tell us not to commit adultery because it is a bad thing, or is it bad because He tells us not to do it?  According to the critics of FFM, the FFM argument must say "both." Thus, it falls into circularity and tautology. Now particular advocates of FFM might well have expressed themselves in ways that sound like this. But that isn't a very interesting inquiry. A much more important inquiry ...