Autonomy in immortality: a mythic argument

[Michael Allan]

I post this as a matter of record.  For anyone else who's interested,
here the technology comes to grips with universals (cultural totality
of myth, social totality of rational beings, infinite space and time)
which allows it to serve as a critical lamp for reading social theory.

I chose to start reading at Kant because he's said to be the inventor
of autonomy [0].  But if the argument below holds, then autonomy is
bound up with immortality, and the lamp should therefore be service-
able not only going forward from the Enlightenment into modern times,
but also backward into theology and the roots of mythic thought.

I only started reading.  I'm sure I'll make mistakes along the way.
But so far, it's kind of fun; at least as fun as designing software.

Mike


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http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/nMy#Autonomy_in_immortality:_a_mythic_argument

    Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration
    and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on
    them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
                                                            — Kant [1]

The starry heavens
------------------
Only the outline is copied here.  For the full argument, see:
http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/nMy#The_starry_heavens


                [OYA] Outline of the mythic argument

   (PiA) The population is autonomous
    |
    +- (PiAi) The population is autonomous in its immortality
        |
        +- (PiM) The population is given to be mortal
        |   |
        |   +- (SiC) The survival of the population is contingent
        |   |   |
        |   |   +- (NxP) Let there be a natural existential risk to
        |   |   |        the population
        |   |   |
        |   |   +- (AxP) Let there be an artificial existential risk
        |   |            to the population
        |   |
        |   +- (IiU) Let the accidental attainment of immortality be
        |            unlikely
        |
        +- (PdI) The population determines above all to become
        |   |    immortal
        |   |
        |   +- (YiA) Let the mythic purpose (NpY) be autonomy in
        |            immortality (PiAi)
        |
        +- (PrC) The population removes all contingency from the issue
            |    of its survival
            |
            +- (NfS) Nothing could force survival on the population
            |   |
            |   +- (XiO) Let deliberate extinction be forever open to
            |            the population
            |
            +- (PnX) The population ensures that nothing can force its
                |    extinction
                |
                +- (PdF) Let the population develop a practice of star
                |        faring
                |
                +- (PdS) Let the population distribute itself among
                |        the stars
                |
                +- (XdS) Let existential risk (SiC) decline
                |        exponentially with stellar extent
                |
                +- (PcF) Let the population continue its practice of
                         star faring

The moral law
-------------
Kant defines the principle of morality in terms of self-legislation,
or autonomy: "act only according to that maxim through which you can
at the same time will that it become a universal law." [2]- He names
this definition of the principle the "categorical imperative", because
it formulates an obligation or command (imperative) and the command
allows for no exceptions (categorical) [3].  He says that the "ground
of the obligation here must not be sought in the nature of the human
being, or in the circumstances of the world in which he is placed, but
a priori soley in concepts of pure reason" [4]. Morality is a useful
concept only if its law "must hold not merely for human beings but for
all rational beings as such". [5]

This suggests a similar generalization for the aim and conclusion of
the mythic argument.  Given that any population of rational beings has
attained autonomy through immortality (PiAi), it follows that rational
beings as a whole have thereby attained the same state:

  (RiAi) Rational beings are autonomous in their immortality.

Which means that rational beings are autonomous, period.

   (RiA) Rational beings are autonomous.

This future conclusion refers to rational beings as a collective.  For
an individual, recall that the principle of morality is already
defined in terms of autonomy.  Indeed, Kant asserts that autonomy and
the moral principle are identical: [6]

    ... what else, then, can freedom of the will be, but autonomy,
   i.e. the property of the will of being a law to itself?  But the
   proposition: the will is in all actions a law to itself, designates
   only the principle of acting on no maxim other than that which can
   also have itself as its object as a universal law.  But this is
   just the formula of the categorical imperative and the principle of
   morality: thus a free will and a will under moral laws are one and
   the same.

Kant underlines this with a further assertion: "Freedom must be
presupposed as a property of the will of all rational beings" [7].
>From this it clearly follows that individual autonomy too must be
presupposed, or at least its immediate availability through the
re-aligning of one's actions.  But there is no such guarantee of
immediate availability in the case of collective autonomy, which is
not bound to an ever present capacity for moral action.  The moral
principle cannot even apply to the collective of rational beings,
which in its universality is already the referent of that principle.

Individual and collective autonomy differ therefore in this regard:
although both are defined as self-legislation against contingency, the
former is tied to a morality that is everywhere within immediate
reach, while the latter is tied to an immortality that is reached only
through an enterprise of mythic proportions, if at all.


Notes
-----

 Kan85 Immanuel Kant.  1785.  Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
       Translated by Mary Gregor and Jens Timmermann, 2012.  Cambridge
       University Press.  http://books.google.ca/books?id=qfyKv1a-lPAC

   [0] Jerome B. Schneewind.  1998.  The invention of autonomy: a
       history of modern moral philosophy.  Cambridge University
       Press.  http://books.google.ca/books?id=VfadsTs-1bUC

   [1] Immanuel Kant.  1788.  Critique of Practical Reason.
       Translated by Mary J. Gregor, 1997.  Cambridge University
       Press.  p. 133.  http://books.google.ca/books?id=E9S_ey6M3igC

   [2] Kan85, 4:421

   [3] Kan85, 4:413, 4:420

   [4] Kan85, 4:389

   [5] Kan85, 4:408

   [6] Kan85, 4:446-7

   [7] Kan85, 4:447-8