Now we know what Willy Loman sold.*

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant's argument for belief in God is that we must represent the highest good as a state of affairs in which everyone is happy because they are virtuous (5:113–114, 124). But neither the laws of nature nor our best efforts can guarantee that happiness will result from virtue. Therefore, Kant thought, we must conclude that the highest good is impossible -- and thereby fail to be motivated to virtue -- unless we postulate "the existence of a cause of nature, distinct from nature, which contains the ground of this connection, namely the exact correspondence of happiness with morality" (5:125), i.e. unless we posit the existence of God (cf. Rohlf, SEP).

As far as I'm concerned, meditation of this kind is prompted by the image above.

Famously, R. Buckminster Fuller hoped that the geodesic dome would help address the postwar housing crisis: geodesic homes are extremely strong for their weight, their "omnitriangulated" surfaces provide an inherently stable structure, and spheres enclose the greatest volume for the least surface area.

Turns out, there are some serious problems with Geodesic homes. But suppose there weren't. What was the likelihood that the door-to-door salesman model would correctly apportion reward (i.e. sell homes) to virtue? Not much, it seems to me. A thought, then, for Monday: successful marketing is the practical postulate of all designers.

Consider, finally, that in adopting this postulate, we are motivated to get on with being virtuous.

* Thanks to Megan for pointing out this link, for the leading thought, and the conversation.

I ended Wednesday saying that I find the WOMMA's "Honesty ROI" to be correct, consistent, and almost totally uninformative. Obviously, I implied, we'd like to have an ethical code that is deeply informative, one that can give us useful guidelines for handling a variety of situations in satisfactory ways. While the WOMMA are right (as we have long attested) that not telling lies is a correct ethical guideline for marketers to follow, we'd like to see a code that gives us a little bit more.

Of course, it's one thing to merely criticize, and quite another to make some positive steps toward a code like that. The latter is our objective today.

Which means that you're going to have to pardon me, because I'm about to get a little philosophical.

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