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Apr. 9th, 2025 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiningfractalAbsolutely — pure text, no tables, full Kant-core energy.
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Kant really *is* the ultimate "no fun allowed" philosopher.
He built an entire moral system that doesn’t care about your feelings, your happiness, or what’s trendy. To him, none of that matters. Morality isn’t about being nice, or being happy, or being liked — it’s about duty, reason, and respect for other people as autonomous beings.
If you do something just because it benefits you, makes you feel good, or gets you social approval, Kant shrugs and says:
*"That's not moral — that's self-interest in disguise."*
For Kant, even kindness only has true moral worth if it's done *from duty*, not because you felt like it. If you're helping others because it makes you feel good, that's emotional, not moral. If you're telling the truth just because you're scared of getting caught in a lie, that's still selfish.
His golden rule isn’t the casual "treat others how you’d like to be treated." It’s way colder and more demanding:
*"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."*
In other words:
*Would it be okay if everyone in the world always did what you’re about to do?*
If not — don’t do it. No excuses.
Kant didn’t care if a behavior was legal, popular, culturally accepted, or emotionally satisfying. None of that could override the authority of reason and universal duty.
For example:
— Lying, even to save someone’s life? Wrong. Once lying is okay sometimes, truth collapses everywhere.
— Exploiting people in business because "everyone does it"? Wrong. You're treating people as tools, not as ends in themselves.
— Chasing social media clout by showing off or deceiving? Wrong. You're using people for attention.
To Kant, the world is full of people treating others as mere instruments for pleasure, profit, or power. And he hates it.
His ultimate rule is brutally simple:
*"Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means."*
This is why Kant would despise so many modern trends — influencer culture, targeted advertising, data mining, political spin, clickbait, planned obsolescence, fake charity marketing, corporate virtue-signaling — because they all rely on manipulation, deception, or treating people like tools.
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And yes — Kant would absolutely be *that guy* at the party standing in the corner, arms crossed, glaring at people who are bending the truth, showing off for attention, or profiting at someone else’s expense.
Not because he hates fun. But because he believes real dignity, real freedom, and real respect can only exist when people act from principle, not desire.
---
Want me to go full absurd and write "Kant reacts to modern internet culture"? Or maybe "Kant roasts late-stage capitalism"? I’m down.
***
---
Kant really *is* the ultimate "no fun allowed" philosopher.
He built an entire moral system that doesn’t care about your feelings, your happiness, or what’s trendy. To him, none of that matters. Morality isn’t about being nice, or being happy, or being liked — it’s about duty, reason, and respect for other people as autonomous beings.
If you do something just because it benefits you, makes you feel good, or gets you social approval, Kant shrugs and says:
*"That's not moral — that's self-interest in disguise."*
For Kant, even kindness only has true moral worth if it's done *from duty*, not because you felt like it. If you're helping others because it makes you feel good, that's emotional, not moral. If you're telling the truth just because you're scared of getting caught in a lie, that's still selfish.
His golden rule isn’t the casual "treat others how you’d like to be treated." It’s way colder and more demanding:
*"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."*
In other words:
*Would it be okay if everyone in the world always did what you’re about to do?*
If not — don’t do it. No excuses.
Kant didn’t care if a behavior was legal, popular, culturally accepted, or emotionally satisfying. None of that could override the authority of reason and universal duty.
For example:
— Lying, even to save someone’s life? Wrong. Once lying is okay sometimes, truth collapses everywhere.
— Exploiting people in business because "everyone does it"? Wrong. You're treating people as tools, not as ends in themselves.
— Chasing social media clout by showing off or deceiving? Wrong. You're using people for attention.
To Kant, the world is full of people treating others as mere instruments for pleasure, profit, or power. And he hates it.
His ultimate rule is brutally simple:
*"Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means."*
This is why Kant would despise so many modern trends — influencer culture, targeted advertising, data mining, political spin, clickbait, planned obsolescence, fake charity marketing, corporate virtue-signaling — because they all rely on manipulation, deception, or treating people like tools.
---
And yes — Kant would absolutely be *that guy* at the party standing in the corner, arms crossed, glaring at people who are bending the truth, showing off for attention, or profiting at someone else’s expense.
Not because he hates fun. But because he believes real dignity, real freedom, and real respect can only exist when people act from principle, not desire.
---
Want me to go full absurd and write "Kant reacts to modern internet culture"? Or maybe "Kant roasts late-stage capitalism"? I’m down.
***
