Au nom de quoi devrais-je m'abstenir de penser que les oeuvres de Bach ou Mozart sont infiniment plus profondes, plus riches et plus précieuses à tous égards que le tambourin ou le flûtiau de ce que Lévi-Strauss appelle les "sociétés sauvages" ? Un tel jugement de valeur n'implique nulle xénophobie, pas davantage la moindre volonté colonisatrice ou impérialiste, simplement l'expression d'un choix dont on voit mal au nom de quelle morale débile il devrait être interdit. 
Luc Ferry, Le Figaro, le 9 février 2012.
Bientôt de nouveaux résultats !
L’entreprise est singulière et a de quoi surprendre : vivre pendant une année en suivant le précepte moral de l’interdiction du mensonge, sous le patronage de Kant qui en disqualifie l’usage au nom de la morale et du respect de la dignité propre à chaque homme.
Cathal Morrow va procéder à cette expérimentation, qui donnera lieu à un livre, The Complete Kant, dont il est déjà possible de lire et commenter le premier chapitre sur le site thecompletekant.com. Dans ce premier chapitre, il témoigne de sa motivation et du sentiment qui l’anime, mêlant problèmes privés et impressions générales à propos du monde, des réalités du travail, qu’il tend à vouloir rejeter.
Il est difficile d’indiquer la valeur philosophique d’un tel projet, qui s’inscrit d’abord dans une démarche, pour son auteur, de recherche de soi et d’une volonté de concordance avec lui-même, mais le principe intrigue : faire d’une théorie philosophique le principe intangible d’une conduite de vie et évaluer les conséquences d’un tel choix sur le plan personnel. Avec ce projet d’expérimentation littéraire et philosophique, Cathal Morrow cherche à attester que la philosophie peut "changer les choses", en faisant de celle-ci l’outil d’une exploration personnelle de la notion de vérité. Attitude naïve ou révolutionnaire ?
Mais comment financer un tel projet ? Là encore, Cathal Morrow fait preuve de singularité : il a déposé son projet sur le réseau social privé "A Small World", en indiquant qu’il reverserait la moitié des bénéfices à qui le financerait. Actuellement, il peut se consacrer à l’écriture de son livre grâce à un fond d’investissement avec lequel il n’a passé aucun contrat : à quoi bon dès lors que l’on travaille sur la vérité et l’honnêteté ?
* À lire :
- Duncan Campbell, "Is it possible to live for a year without lying ?", The Guardian, 06.10.08
8 commentaires
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Bernard de Rochefort
More news here about man living without lying for a year. news the first news report did not report.....!!!!
Dany bloom
more on Monsier Morrow here:
A British man is attempting to live in a ¡§no-lie¡¨ zone for 12 ...
http://www.rushprnews.com/category/lifestyle/
A Year in the ¡§No-Lie Zone¡¨ A Man¡¦s Attempt to Live With Truth
October 9, 2008
A British man is attempting to live in a ¡§no-lie¡¨ zone for 12 months ¡X and he is already six
months into his ¡§Kantian¡¨ project. But is it really possible to live for a year without lying?
By Danny Bloom
MADRID,Spain (RUSHPRNEWS) 10/09/2008¡V Newspapers these days are full of unchecked and under-reported stories that later turn out to be not true. People call up or email a reporter and tell them they are going to do such and such, an incredible feat, and then the reporter duly writes the story up....MORE at LINK above
Emmanuelle Kant
British bloke living in "no-lie" zone for 12 months -- already six
months into a Kantian project. But is it really possible to live for a
year without lying?
By "Emmanuelle Kant"
email moi at sharpcool888 AT gmail DOT com
MADRID -- Newspapers these days are full of unchecked and
under-reported stories
that later turn out to be not true. People call up or email a reporter and tell
them they are going to do such and such, an incredible feat, and then
the reporter duly writes the story up and it goes live on the Web for
all the world to read, and then later, one never knows if the story
panned out. Because the newspapers never publish a followup article.
Remember the man in Australia who was going to sell his life on Ebay?
Turned out it
never happened. Remember the American woman who claimed she cloned her
dead dog into five new puppies in South Korean lab? It never happened
that way, and the woman left Seoul in some kind of strange media shame
without bring any of those cute puppies back to America with her.
But both of those "news" stories made worldwide headlines. No followup
in the papers,
however. That's the kind of media landscape we live in today.
About ten percent of what we read in the newspapers these
days turns out to be "fake" news. Unchecked news. News that was never
fact-checked.
It's easy to spin a story. You hire a good PR agent, he or she "plants' the
story in an unsuspecting newspaper in Britain or Canada or the USA,
and the blogosphere
picks it up. Then, in just a few short paragraphs, a new
world-historial hero artist is born. Some of these stories even make
it to Hollywood. Others die a garbaged, fish-wrapper death.
Here's a cute story I stumbled upon the other day. It has only been
reported in one print newspaper so far, a kind of leftwing
philosophical newspaper one might say. The newspaper in Britain, which
shall go nameless for now
-- and the UK is famous for publishing "fake" news stories that later
turn out to be completely untrue -- although they make for good
reading! -- this progressive newspaper in London is now reporting that
a bloke in
Spain, but a British bloke, is six months into a project in which he
will go a whole year without lying.
A noble cause, a noble project.
His name is Cathal Morrow. He's got a nice website, too.
Mr Morrow, 43, married to a beautiful Spanish woman and with two small
children to support, says he
plans to write a book about his year-long experiment, and he has
already thought of a title: "The Complete Kant." As in Immanuel Kant,
the philosopher who was very philosophical about truth and lying.
Of course, the newspaper story does tell us that Mr Morrow does not
have a "publisher" yet for his book-in-progress, but who cares about
those small details. The "news value" of this "no-lie zone" story is
paramount here.
It's a great story: "The philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that
telling lies was always
morally wrong. But is it possible to live without telling a single lie
for a whole year?" writes reporter Duncan Campbell in his first
paragraph of the story. "That is the task that Cathal Morrow has set
himself and he will let us know next year if it is possible, when he
has finished his book on the experiment, to be called 'The Complete
Kant'."
Movie rights, anyone? Sell the idea to Hollywood? But will it pan out?
That's the US$64,000 question, minus inflation.
Morrow used to be the managing director of an IT recruitment company,
but quit to write a novel. Now he's in a unique "no-lie" zone for a year.
A private equity company in Europe, run by Edward Fitzpatrick, of the
Thaler Fund, has agreed to
finance Morrow for a year and help him on his way. Two quarterly
payments have already been sent his way, according to a source deep
within this story.
The book already has a first chapter, literary agents
can read it and bid for the publishing rights, movie agents can come
calling, it's all in the cards.
Mr Morrow even has a blog where he explains his Kantian mission: "The
philosopher Immanuel
Kant said that lying was always morally wrong.
I am attempting to go a whole year without telling a single lie. But
much more than that I'm looking for some kind of truth to
keep me going for the next 40 years or so, and to pass on to my kids.
Karl Marx said -- and I misquote -- 'Philosophy is bollocks because it
doesn't change anything.' I disagree. I think it may well be able to
give me the direction I so desperately need.
Well, that's the plan anyway. As is to turn my journey into a
book. "
It's an interesting story. A man living in a ''no-lie'' zone for a year.
Married with kids. His funding sponsor wrote to me, after I inquried about the
situation, and Mr Fitzpatrick noted: "Thank you for the kind mail,
Emmanuelle Kant. It appears that since so many people have an issue
with the simple truth, our project shows the importance of the study
and the subsequent book. I am glad you find the topic of interest and
look forward to your thoughts when you have read the book next year."
And he added: "We have paid two quarterly payments so far to Mr
Morrow, and he is now six months into his "no-lie zone", as you put
it. Unless the current global credit crunch also destroys all paper
sources and printing presses, I can confidently say we will publish
his book and push for whatever spin off comes our way, whether we seek
it or thought of it. Thanks again for you interest. We are all
excited."
See Mr Morrow's blog for the "no-lie zone" here:
http://thecompletekant.com
---------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Emmanuelle Kant" is a pen-name for a global citizen
who is very interested in the truth, where-ever she may lie.