A Kantian Critique of "Sorry" by Justin Bieber | Hacker News Reader

A Kantian Critique of "Sorry" by Justin Bieber

decodingvibes.com

237 pointsaltmanaltman105 comments

This 3 minute song creates a fleeting portrait of a man, not necessarily Bieber, who we cannot know. The song captures the mindset of a character who, one might infer, cynically knows what he’s trying to do. It’s possible he has no interest in a heartfelt, meaningful apology. In fact, this character - who lives only within the song and the liminal world it creates - may be operating exactly to his own moral preference. We don’t know enough to say more. It’s like asking if a singer of “happy birthday” truly wishes their subject to be happy.

In short, you Kant analyze pop music with confidence.

Of course one cannot in all sincerity know. Today, and even yesteryear, are composed to entertain others, not oneself. They are seldom personal or about the singer, with exceptions like the well known songs by Carly Simon and others. In any event songs today are often written by others, passed around till they find a “home.”

> you Kant analyze pop music with confidence

Fun fact: The correct German pronunciation of “Kant” isn’t like “can’t”, but like “cunt”.

In American pronunciation. In British, "can't" sounds close to Kant in German, but with a longer a.

The length of the “a” is what I was alluding to. The British pronunciation still wouldn’t be mistaken for the German one.

Even more fun anecdote, barely related.

In a recent South Africa vs England rugby match, an accusation of racism was levied against an SA player because he directed the phrase "white cunt" to one of the English players.

If Afrikaans, the word "kant" (pronounced 'cunt') means "side". "Wit" is "white".

So when he said "wit kant" he really meant "white side". England traditionally wears white livery, South Africa wears green. So it was the "wit kant" vs the "groen kant".

Hilarity and much confusion ensued for a while after that accusation!

Modern preferences have shifted away from manual ones to automatic ones.

Hmm. Funny but not really right. The ‘a’ is as in ‘car’.

Funny. Take a simple pop song about apology and make an academic treatise on what a heartfelt apology looks like.

On the other end of the spectrum would be to summarize it in the shortest form with the simplest words, instead of with many and multi-syllable words. How about this (not mine, I’ve heard this in addiction recovery rooms, where apologies and amends are often discussed):

In the sentence “I’m sorry I did x, but you did y”, the word “but” means “disregard the above.”

I agree with the sentiment.

But,

Whenever I catch myself reaching for “but” I recognize it is because I need to feel heard. What I did was unacceptable. But I didn’t do it in a vacuum and I need my grievances to be recognized. My belief is that omitting the “but” phrase is an act of faith. You need to trust that the other party cares about your feelings and side of the issue, too. Accepting an apology is just as delicate an act as giving one.

“I’m sorry I hit you with the blue shell.”

“I appreciate you saying that. I know you were in last place and that must have felt awful. I don’t want that for you either.”

So, you don’t agree with the sentiment?.. /s

I find you can almost always replace “but” with “and” in situations like those and end up more heard by the other side.

I understand the urge to feel heard AND whenever we bring something that may contrast we risk the disagreement connotation that “but” carries to trigger the recipient’s defensive reaction (even if unconsciously)

First rule of relationships: adhere to the first rule of improv!

Always leave them wanting more?

Not only that, but avoid asking questions!

I had a coworker who talked all the time about their improv activities outside of work. They also dropped “yes, and” into business meetings with execs, and would then explain why.

They asked me if I thought it would be a fun team-building exercise to bring in their improv coach and do a class with a bunch of VPs and directors. I said no.

I understand the concept but sometimes people can be overzealous about their passions.

EDIT: I understand the concept and sometimes people can be overzealous about their passions.

What?! I think a 28 hour game of Twilight Imperium would be a great team destroying exercise.

I take umbrage with this gross mischaracterization. After no more than ten practice games to acquire familiarity with the rules, a game of Twilight Imperium rarely takes more than 14 hours.

Depending on the relationship involved, asking the person why they think I behaved as I did often helps. Sometimes the reason they think I did what I did is more correct than what I would have put after but or and. And sometimes the answer they give shows they are modeling my motivations completely incorrectly.

You can just reverse the two phrases:

“I felt X, Y, Z, so I did P, Q, R, but I’m sorry for that because it caused you A, B, C.”

Your usage of “but” still invalidates the preceding phrase on behalf of the latter, which works here because the affirmed phrase is the apology.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with stating your side — but if you mean it, end on the apology.

I agree with everything there except the "if you mean it" part. Phrasing things imperfectly doesn't mean you don't mean it!

Bieber was clearly trying to use the word "butt" here; it just does not come across in a vocal and was obviously transcribed incorrectly.

From a Hegelian perspective, the concept of the apology inherently is contradictory: for an apology before the act of harm has occurred is always "too early," yet an apology after the act has occurred is always, in some sense, "too late," ie, the harm has already been caused. We can see from this point that the apology is therefore never-on-time, always a spectre in the realm of human temporality. Also, I've never read Hegel (not that this disqualifies me from being a Hegelian.)

Song also proves Bieber is a dualist

"cause I'm missing more than just your body"

What else does she have that he misses?

Dank memes. She has dank memes on her phone.

You're not clocking it?

Bieber in this case refers to body as in "corps", the subject's collective professional or military associations. He laments the loss of power he enjoyed stemming from the subject's erstwhile allegiance.

It's a heartfelt apology to the UN, but, as the article says, too late.

Her money?

Or it proves he's not a necrophiliac. I mean, there are more ways to read that sentence.

That brought to mind this examination of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/taylor-swift-a-socratic-...

The irony is, as I read the OP I thought it was very much in the style of McSweeneys and then there is this.

It is a pretty obvious humor device so I assume the ideas are independent. And the Socratic dialog framing adds another layer of humor since this is closer to a juxtaposition, lampooning both Swift's vapidity and Plato's writing style.

Justin Bieber is a utilitarian rather than Kantian. From a UChicago economics view, he is behaving rationally.

If utilitarianisms only interest is the consequence of the action and whether it resulted in a positive outlook. the consequence that we care about is "your body" and if "sorry" is uttered in time, then we can receive the reward, If in the relationship you say sorry and there is an expectation of all actions being forgiven, then, this is the ultimate get out of jail free card. it is infinite because you can always use it, therefore although there is recognition of wrongdoing (at first), there is no need for a preventative measure to take place, because the recognition only looks at the consequence of reverting the status of "wronged" to "righted", not about the causes of the status "wronged" to have happened. This leads to an infinite loop of wrongful actions. What would happen if we constantly said "sorry" unnecessarily at a set interval, which we'll call the canadian way, there would always be our desired consequence and no wrongdoing to ever take place!

Without the recognition and admittance of wrongdoing, the wrong action itself will repeat forever in the relationship because its tolerable. making it an infinite get out of jail free card. If this was a system, fault tolerance would be at 100%, the error rate is probably the highest in any system that could exist, if it was code, then there wouldn't even be such a thing as bugfixes, the only recourse is "have you tried rebooting it?" method of recovery systems. Of course if the fault tolerance was not 100% then everything would be different.

> We cannot attribute any moral judgment to Bieber as a human being; we can only answer the moral question as posed in the song.

As a semi-off-topic little rant, why do we always assume that pop singers are singing about themselves and their own experiences? Can a song, as a work of art, not have an independent existence, much as a novel may? Pop, rap, and maybe country songs are all now assumed to be about the artist themselves.

Last time at a karaoke I sang a song that translates to "we're hitchhiking".

Little did the audience know that I wasn't hitchhiking at all and neither were they. I was just standing there, singing.

The question might be asked "why would we assume the singer isn't singing about themself?" In modern pop music it's become it's become standard that the "character" an artist "plays" when they're performing or writing is themself; there's no suspension of disbelief like with a play where there's an entire context around knowing that what you're seeing is a portrayal. Same with a book or movie or other works of fiction, and with those forms of media it's clear when you're seeing or reading fiction or non-fiction.

In a sense, some artists write novels and some write memoirs.

At least in metal music we usually doesn't assume the artist sings about themselves.

Fortunately most artists are neither fighting dragons nor worshiping satan.

Surprised this article didn't explain the categorical imperative before appealing to it. Here's my interpretation of it, although some would say that (4) is a utilitarian interpretation(even though it's globally utilitarian) and therefore it is not truly categorical.

(1) We all know that doing what's best for oneself does not count as doing something "good" or "right". Even the worst psychopath or monster will do what is best for themselves. "What benefits me" is not a principle on which to decide how to act morally.

(2) The most basic moral principle might be "do no harm", i.e. you are free to do whatever you want as long as you do not cause others harm. This is something that most normal human beings instinctively recognize as a valid way to decide between good and bad actions. This is the absolute minimum moral compass you must possess in order to participate in civilized society.

(3) One level up is the golden rule, or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or treating others the same way you would want to be treated. This is generally recognized by many religions as the gold standard for what it means to be a good human being.

(4) Kant goes one level further. He says, basically: "before you do something, ask yourself: if everyone else in the world did what you're about to do as a matter of course, will it make the world better or worse? If it makes the world worse, then don't do it". This is a very basic formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative.

> Kant goes one level further. He says, basically: "before you do something, ask yourself: if everyone else in the world did what you're about to do as a matter of course, will it make the world better or worse? If it makes the world worse, then don't do it".

This is not the Categorical Imperative. What you're describing is more like Rule Utilitarianism. Kantian ethics is deontological, not consequentialist.

Hence my qualification at the start. My problem with deontological ethics is that the justification of it abruptly hits an impenetrable wall, i.e. the rule or the duty, unless you appeal to some benefit or prevention of harm to rational beings. Even in the Metaphysics of Morals, the whole concept of duty would be arbitrary if not in reference to rational beings. But happy to be corrected.

> Even in the Metaphysics of Morals, the whole concept of duty would be arbitrary if not in reference to rational beings.

In what sense? There's a sense in which there's no moral law without rational agents, but Kant himself is explicit about the "good will" being entirely independent of intended or obtained ends. In other words, no rational agent needs to benefit (or be harmed) in Kant's system for individuals to be morally blameworthy or praiseworthy.

(See GMS 4:394 for the "jewel" analogy, which is most popularly cited as evidence for Kant's position on this.)

I understand that this is the common (and perhaps the prevailing) interpretation, but my question has always been: once you subtract action potential and expected ends, what remains of the concept of "good"? We cannot simply end the inquiry by saying "good will" because it still doesn't clarify what it is that one wills. Disclaimer: not a Kantian scholar.

It's been twenty years since I read Kant, but it differs from utilitarianism in that it has no concern for utility of others, rather it's "if I could pick rules for everybody to follow, those are the rules I should follow. Ergo if I never want anybody to lie to me, then it is always immoral for me to lie -- anything else would be a contradiction, since it assumes two rational agents coming to different conclusions.

A good point, but (a) this merely sounds like a modification of the golden rule: do unto all others, without exception, as you would have done unto you, and (b) the rule isn't an end in itself because the end lies behind the "should" (e.g. why should someone not lie to me).

It's not about what you actually want in this case, but what you could want. It's impossible to want people to betray your trust, because if you wanted it then it wouldn't be betraying your trust.

So that type of lying is strictly forbidden. You do not want to be deceived. But if include in "lies" such things as reading fiction aloud, then that can be permissible as you can want that: you aren't really deceived or betrayed.

Yes, Kant's version is strictly about logic: Is it possible to want everyone to follow the proposed rule without making the rule nonsense?

(4) is not actually co-extensive with any of Kant's four formulations of the CI. To break them down:

1. The "universal law" formulation (GMS 4:421) states that an action if permissible if and only if we can will that maxim of our action becomes a universal law. At no point does the FUL actually ask whether the world becomes a better place, it asks strictly whether there's a logical contraction between the maxim of one's actions and their universalization.

2. The "humanity" formulation (GMS 4:429) states that an action is permissible if and only if it treats its rational subjects (including the actor) as ends in themselves, rather than means. But this too is a logical construction without reference to outcomes: a plain reading of Kant suggests that the HF formulation permits actions that make the world a worse place so long as the maxim behind the action is derived from a basic source of respect for humanity as a means.

3. The "autonomy" formulation (GMS 4:432) is similar to the FUL, except that it asks us to imagine ourselves as a legislator of universal law. My interpretation of this formulation (IMO it's Kant's most confusing) is as his attempt to emphasize that we must not merely follow derivations of universal law, but actively legislate and derive it for ourselves. This effectively layers a constraint on the FUL, but preserves its basic logical structure, i.e. does not ask us to perform casuistry when determining whether an action is permissible.

4. The "kingdom of ends" formulation (GMS 4:439) is intended as a unifying formulation of the first three, and essentially challenges us to test the moral permissibility of the maxims our actions not merely through universalization, humanity, or self-legislation, but as acceptable to an abstract community (Kant's "kingdom") of similarly rational, self-legislating actors. This is arguably Kant in his most Rawlsian/Piagetian state, since there's an additional idea that the permissibility of our actions is qualified and constrained by whether our peers would accept them.

Of these, (4) is arguably the closest to us asking whether the world is made better or worse as our moral test. But two problems emerge. First, Kant himself sees his formulations as co-extensive, meaning that (4) cannot imply any consideration for outcomes if (1) through (3) do not (and they do not, as purely logical, non-casuistic constructions of duty). Second, Kant emphasizes acceptance of actions in the KOE formulation, and acceptance in turn is grounded in (1) through (3). If acceptance were not grounded so, the imperatives in question would be hypothetical rather than categorical.

Accidentally read this in Zizek’s voice, can imagine him delivering this in a recreated neon lit motel room set

I can hear the sniffing now

'Justin Bieber? God forbid! <snif> No! <snif> No-no-no-no!'

> Iz it too late now tsh to say sorry? I think tsk the id-eology of time described here....

After spending most of today circling around maxims I appreciate the application.

Though I must state that the pic almost had me closing the tab before reading.

Here's another venting out, somewhere near Categorical Imperative https://kohlbergs7.org/epm/

> After spending most of today circling around Maxims

a sentence i have't heard since middle school at the local corner store with my bros hesitant about buying a lad mag

Yup.

I have once gotten a copy when visiting somewhere abroad as a teenager, it had a blue car on the cover. We didn't have those.

I have been amused by this memory occasionally while doing the middle aged version of maxim.

Fun read! I love the depth in seemingly superficial texts. Sometimes I similarly ponder claims or questions in advertisements.

Although I read that this web site was made using AI, I still feel entertained by it. The topic requires precise language and that's something that an LLM is surely excelling at. Yet I feel that the concepts in the text are a bit repetitive; the write-up could have been shortened a bit.

Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux, Pussy Galore) Talks Justin Bieber’s Purpose

https://talkhouse.com/neil-hagerty-royal-trux-pussy-galore-t...

We can not attribute the moral image of the protagonist to Bieber himself. He is an artist, so he is describing an experience of life, perhaps stemming from the receiving end of a fake apology.

Otherwise, it is a very good and thought-provoking article.

Good article! Off topic, It reminds me of this:

https://www.bensparks.co.uk/talk/the-sacred-geometry-of-chan...

Aside from the other links in comments, any where to read more of this? I need more.

Good. We can move to Bruno Mars now

An Aristotelian Critique of “The Lazy Song”

Sokrates: being lazy has no virtue. Plato: being lazy has no virtue. Aristotle: perhaps it's funny?

Both Aristotle and Sokrates would grant the song one point: The demand to be productive every waking hour is not a moral truth. The boss and the father do not own the day. The problem is what the song puts in the space gained. It clears out the obligations, then it stops short of asking what the free day is for.

This should be a PhD thesis.

> “Is it too late to say sorry?” is actually not a moral question at all when viewed through a Kantian lens. The question in itself contains the answer: yes, it is too late to say sorry, not in the sense that has anything to do with the nature of time, but rather the form of the question itself shows that the song fundamentally misunderstands what an apology is.

Further cementing my view that philosophy is 95% bullshit. The author really cannot imagine times when it might or might not be too late to say sorry? I think they fundamentally misunderstand what an apology is.

>I think they fundamentally misunderstand what an apology is

Did they, or do you? The point of view presented in the blog post is: "If you wronged someone you ought to apologize. The fact that this person will not forgive you (it's too late for that) does not influence wherever you should or should not apologize"

Which, as someone who is definitely not into philosophy, kinda makes sense?

I kant understand

I would thoroughly enjoy an entire podcast of this genre.

...

A Cartesian Critique of "Fireflies" by Owl City

...

A Humean Critique of "I Gotta Feeling" by The Black Eyed Peas

Then ask an LLM. I'm serious, if you like the style. This article, despite the disclaimer, is almost certainly LLM-written. It's one of many ephemeral blogs that have been cropping up on HN lately and that post single-theme content with striking regularity.

smells of tokens

Slop.

[stub for offtopicness]

>No AI was used to generate the text for this article

Damn. Please never stop writing

The slop art gave me the wrong impression. I did enjoy the read even thinking it was AI though.

I'm sorry we're getting so off topic here but...

I suppose it helps to focus on the core of someone's strength, and the core of the content they are sharing.

You could be a great engineer and a great blogger, but have no skill in making graphics. If you made the artistic choice to add AI-generated art to an excellent engineering blog post, I would forgive it -- assuming it wasn't detracting in some important way.

Overall, the human skill of editing - particularly excluding that which is not additive - does remain key though.

I will say in this case, I don't know the pop song well enough to know if the AI-generated image is super relevant, or just random.

EDIT: I'm guessing it's "Kant"[0] in the image, listening to modern music. Ah... at first I thought it was like, George Washington.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

You're absolutely right! jk. I hate this situation of "everything is slop until proven otherwise" and the author doesn't have to be good at writing and drawing just to share their thoughts. But generally you don't expect a Michelin star level meal after having a turd sandwich entrée. It's just a natural pavlovian response at this point to see slop and expect slop. Totally unfair, I agree, but really hard to get rid of it.

It's not even unfair. It's just a heuristic that occasionally gives incorrect results. We and the author would have both been better off skipping the illustration.

The real problem is that "serious content creators" believe (as far as I can tell anyway) that they must have a cover image to make the article appealing or set the mood or whatever. They might even be right as far as the actually reader is concerned, but either way this is the real disease, and it's decades older than LLMs.

You don't have to be an artist! Just draw stickman doodles, it shows personality and effort, and I will respect you a billion times more than Promptbert Sloppenheimer.

Yeah me too. While reading I keep thinking "ok this might be ai generated but it's not slop. Good job funny man". I owe the author an apology.

It's not an art piece, it's a writing piece. The illustration is just there for support, not the central focus or even the topic of the article. The author is obviously a decent writer, but I don't see how they should be expected to pay an artist for a simple illustration when this article has nothing to do with said illustration. Life isn't black and white, and you'd do yourself a favor by noticing the shades of gray.

I don't think the illustration adds anything, it could simply be left out. I did enjoy the writing.

They don’t have to pay an artist for the illustration, just use a stock photo (lots of which exist). Or leave it blank (nobody needed an illustration). Having an AI image for filler seems to be in poor taste.

They could just have no "featured image"? Quasi-irrelevant featured images where already bad before AI, AI-generated ones are just 10x worse.

Anyway, it is their piece, their website, so they choose how to structure it. I just don't like the plague of obligatory featured images everywhere in general. I can understand a featured image that adds something relevant, or even simply has some artistic value in itself. But both stock images and AI-generated ones add neither.

Due to that image, I immediately copy pasted it to pangram before reading the author's note. Interestingly enough it marked it all as AI generated that has "been paraphrased or rewritten". I am not sure I trust that though, and I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the author's claim because the article itself was not bad in the end anyway, and I also enjoyed reading it. I am very curious though if this was indeed a false positive.

I don't want this to seem like a witch hunt, but I got an unpleasant surprise when I ran the text through Pangram...

It got "100% AI" with "high" confidence, highlighting that it was likely "paraphrased or rewritten" [1].

I know Pangram gets a lot of flak, but so far I've found it to be pretty reliable, especially since they claim to have a very low false-positive rate.

I then compared it with the original version of the article published on the author's GitHub [2], but got the same disappointing result [3].

And now I'm stuck. I don't know whether I should believe Pangram or the author of the article...

[1] https://www.pangram.com/history/38ffe92b-0077-4bce-816a-b89b...

[2] https://github.com/Suranjandas7/public_writing/commit/6b08ad...

[3] https://www.pangram.com/history/e9fea5bf-a2cd-4ba2-b6b0-75e0...

I need to stop using this website.

This is AI generated.

Is it? I couldn’t tell and I’m pretty sensitive to machine generated text.

Also, the author claims:

> No AI was used to generate the text for this article. The cover image and the voiceover in the audio version of the article is AI-generated. The cover image is made using Google Gemini’s latest image model while the voiceover uses OpenAI’s tts models.

I would like, personally, if the image was a stock photo. It being AI feels in poor taste.

Pangram reports "100% AI" with "high" confidence...

> Also, the author claims:

You can slap an arbitrary disclaimer on anything; it doesn’t mean it’s genuine.

Very true, I just want to trust people.

100p

Great, now do Apologize by Timbaland from the lenses of Schopenhauer

> from the lenses of Schopenhauer

Ha! Analysing (deconstructing?) poems was part of primary schooling in middle eastern traditions wherein Philosophy & Cosmology were considered to be the highest form of Knowledge (informed by Avicenna's ideas on pedagogy & education): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399623059_Islamic_E...

I was going to say for "What Goes Around Comes Around" by Timberlake, or maybe "F--- it, I don't want you back" by Eamonn, myself. Schopenhauer though. Great minds.

Yeah yeah Schopenhauer, but Nietzsche's eternal recurrance is just sitting there!

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