Thursday, February 14, 2019

Art, Morality, Adaptation

Kant's formulation that 'Beauty is a Symbol of Morality' would seem to entail that the production of Beauty and the production of Morality are analogous in some respect.  Or, in other words, it entails that Genius and Pure Practical Reason correspond in some respect.  Now, each has a super-personal source.  Furthermore, that a product of Genius, be, according to Kant, "exemplary", is logically equivalent to the condition that a Maxim be Universalizable.  However, where Morality diverges in the analogy is from the condition that the product of Genius, according to Kant, be "original".  At the root of the divergence is the implicit premise that Morality is eternal, while Art is historically-conditioned. On the other hand, if, as has been previously discussed, Morality prescribes an internal re-organization of the Species, as an adaptive strategy, then the premise that Morality presents an eternal remedy, e. g. Universality, for an eternal flaw, e. g. Selfishness, is undermined.  On that basis, the analogy between Genius and Pure Practical Reason entails, the contrary, that the latter, like the former, has Transformal Causality, i. e. it serves to modify a previous internal organization of the Species, for some new adaptive purpose.  Accordingly, the divergence of Morality from Art is due to an abstraction by Kant of the former from its historical context, i. e. from having as its antecedent an era in which Individuation is an adaptive strategy of the Species, expressed as a Morality of Self-Interest.

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