Truths and lies in the extra-political sense

(an essay with two voices on the movie L'Anglaise et le Duc de Eric Rohmer)

Abstract

This article contains a discussion of Eric Rohmer’s fi lm, L’Anglaise et le Duc, in the light of Kantian views that are expounded, not in his Aesthetics, but in his moral and political works. Both authors of this paper agree that the theme of Rohmer’s fi lm is a confl ict between morals and politics. They disagree, however, on how the confl ict is solved. Two different ways of solving the confl ict are suggested by the authors. According to the fi rst, the confl ict is solved in favor of politics, so that the fi lm could be construed as an objection to Kant’s views in his essay “On the supposed right of lying from philanthropy”. According to the second, Kant’s Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals can be taken as a starting point for a justifi cation of the protagonist’s lie (which is taken as the climax in the fi lm’s plot). It is argued that this lie is not contradictory of the kind of maxims allowed by Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative. According to this interpretation, the confl ict’s solution in the fi lm is moral rather than political.