Hi Ron, On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 10:27 PM, X Acto <[email protected]> wrote: > "It is, again, the capacity for choice that makes us accountable for > our own actions and states. Epictetus is particularly fond of > exploring the implications of this essentially Stoic conception. > In studying his usage it is helpful to remember that his favored > term prohairesis refers more often to the capacity for choice than > it does to particular acts of choosing. The word is variously > translated; the rendering “volition” is adopted here as in Long 2002. > The volition, Epictetus argues, is “by nature unimpeded” (1.17.21), > and it is for this reason that freedom is for him an inalienable > characteristic of the human being. The very notion of a capacity > to make one's own decisions implies as a matter of logical necessity > that those decisions are free of external compulsion; otherwise they > would not be decisions. But humans do have such a capacity and are > thus profoundly different from even the higher animals, which deal > with impressions merely in an unreflective way..."
To quote The Dude, "that's just, like...your opinion, man." I think we would be more loving compassionate people if we dropped the dubious notion of free will. Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
