Key Arguments

• Ricoeur observes that something genuinely new enters when Kant identifies 'matter', 'object', and 'duty' with the notion of an end in itself: 'Something new is said when the notions of "matter," of "object," and of "duty" are identified with those of end-in-itself.'
• He claims that this novelty articulates exactly what the Golden Rule already states in popular wisdom prior to critical formalization: 'What is said here that is new is precisely what the Golden Rule states on the level of popular wisdom, before it is sifted through the critique. For it is indeed the deepest intention of this rule that now emerges clarified and purified.'
• Ricoeur explicates 'treating humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means' as exerting power over the will of others that ranges from restrained influence to unleashed violence, culminating in torture: 'What indeed is it to treat humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means if not to exert upon the will of others that power which, full of restraint in the case of influence, is unleashed in all the forms that violence takes, culminating in torture?'
• He explicitly traces the 'occasion for this progressive violence' back to the initial dissymmetry between agent and patient: 'And what is the occasion for this progressive violence of power exerted by one will upon another if not the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to others?'
• He concludes that 'The Golden Rule and the imperative of the respect owed to persons do not simply have the same field of exercise, they also have the same aim: to establish reciprocity wherever there is a lack of reciprocity.'
• Behind the Golden Rule, Ricoeur discerns 'the intuition, inherent in solicitude, of genuine otherness at the root of the plurality of persons.', so that reading the Kantian imperative as a formalization of the Golden Rule allows solicitude’s concern for irreducible otherness to inform our understanding of respect.
• On this reading, 'the unifying and unitary idea of humanity ceases to appear as a copy of the universality at work in the principle of autonomy, and the second formulation of the categorical imperative assumes once more its entirely original character.', because it is now seen as articulating the ethical demand for reciprocity in situations of asymmetry and victimization.

Source Quotes

The parallel of the argument, however, masks the secret discontinuity introduced by the very idea of persons as ends in themselves. Something new is said when the notions of "matter," of "object," and of "duty" are identified with those of end-in-itself. What is said here that is new is precisely what the Golden Rule states on the level of popular wisdom, before it is sifted through the critique.

Something new is said when the notions of "matter," of "object," and of "duty" are identified with those of end-in-itself. What is said here that is new is precisely what the Golden Rule states on the level of popular wisdom, before it is sifted through the critique. For it is indeed the deepest intention of this rule that now emerges clarified and purified. What indeed is it to treat humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means if not to exert upon the will of others that power which, full of restraint in the case of influence, is unleashed in all the forms that violence takes, culminating in torture?

For it is indeed the deepest intention of this rule that now emerges clarified and purified. What indeed is it to treat humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means if not to exert upon the will of others that power which, full of restraint in the case of influence, is unleashed in all the forms that violence takes, culminating in torture? And what is the occasion for this progressive violence of power exerted by one will upon another if not the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to others?

What indeed is it to treat humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means if not to exert upon the will of others that power which, full of restraint in the case of influence, is unleashed in all the forms that violence takes, culminating in torture? And what is the occasion for this progressive violence of power exerted by one will upon another if not the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to others? The Golden Rule and the imperative of the respect owed to persons do not simply have the same field of exercise, they also have the same aim: to establish reciprocity wherever there is a lack of reciprocity.

And what is the occasion for this progressive violence of power exerted by one will upon another if not the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to others? The Golden Rule and the imperative of the respect owed to persons do not simply have the same field of exercise, they also have the same aim: to establish reciprocity wherever there is a lack of reciprocity. And in the background of the Golden Rule there reappears the intuition, inherent in solicitude, of genuine otherness at the root of the plurality of persons.

The Golden Rule and the imperative of the respect owed to persons do not simply have the same field of exercise, they also have the same aim: to establish reciprocity wherever there is a lack of reciprocity. And in the background of the Golden Rule there reappears the intuition, inherent in solicitude, of genuine otherness at the root of the plurality of persons. At this price, the unifying and unitary idea of humanity ceases to appear as a copy of the universality at work in the principle of autonomy, and the second formulation of the categorical imperative assumes once more its entirely original character.

And in the background of the Golden Rule there reappears the intuition, inherent in solicitude, of genuine otherness at the root of the plurality of persons. At this price, the unifying and unitary idea of humanity ceases to appear as a copy of the universality at work in the principle of autonomy, and the second formulation of the categorical imperative assumes once more its entirely original character. Having said this, have we done violence to the Kantian text?

Key Concepts

• Something new is said when the notions of "matter," of "object," and of "duty" are identified with those of end-in-itself.
• What is said here that is new is precisely what the Golden Rule states on the level of popular wisdom, before it is sifted through the critique. For it is indeed the deepest intention of this rule that now emerges clarified and purified.
• What indeed is it to treat humanity in my person and in the person of others as a means if not to exert upon the will of others that power which, full of restraint in the case of influence, is unleashed in all the forms that violence takes, culminating in torture?
• And what is the occasion for this progressive violence of power exerted by one will upon another if not the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to others?
• The Golden Rule and the imperative of the respect owed to persons do not simply have the same field of exercise, they also have the same aim: to establish reciprocity wherever there is a lack of reciprocity.
• And in the background of the Golden Rule there reappears the intuition, inherent in solicitude, of genuine otherness at the root of the plurality of persons.
• At this price, the unifying and unitary idea of humanity ceases to appear as a copy of the universality at work in the principle of autonomy, and the second formulation of the categorical imperative assumes once more its entirely original character.

Context

Ricoeur’s reinterpretation of Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative in dialogue with the Golden Rule, within the discussion of violence, power-over, and the move from solicitude to moral norm in 'Solicitude and the Norm'.