Copleston:
Bradley does not disagree, any more than Hegel did, with the view that the end
of morality is the realization of a good will.
RMP:
The term “will” is translated by the MOQ as “attraction to Quality.”
Copleston:
This doesn’t sound like the common meaning of the word because in the common
meaning will is a property of an autonomous self-realizing individual.
RMP:
The MOQ, like the Buddhists and the Determinists (odd bedfellows) says this
“autonomous individual” is an illusion.
Copleston:
His point is that content must be given to this idea. And to do this we must
understand that the good will is the universal will,
RMP:
If Bradley had stopped here the MOQ would agree.
Copleston:
the will of a social organism.
RMP:
But he didn’t stop there and the MOQ strongly disagrees that the universal will
is the will of the social organism.
Copleston:
For this means that one's duties are specified by one's membership of the
social organism, and that 'to be moral, I must will my station and its duties'.
RMP:
Hitler couldn’t have agreed more.
On Aug 17, 2011, at 5:19 AM, MarshaV wrote:
>
> Hi Ian,
>
> Yes, but Ms. Albahari's investigation is whether the 'sense of self' does, in
> fact, reflect a real 'self'. A far more important investigation consider
> that RMP rejects an autonomous self.
>
>
>
> "The MOQ, like the Buddhists and the Determinists (odd bedfellows) says this
> “autonomous individual” is an illusion."
> (RMP, Copleston)
>
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 17, 2011, at 4:05 AM, Ian Glendinning wrote:
>
>> Thanks Marsha,
>>
>> So even an analytical buddhist agrees that "one must" ... attribute
>> free-will to self.
>>
>> Ian
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 8:59 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> 3.2.2 Role: Agent of actions and thinker of thoughts (autonomy)
>>>
>>> "The sense of boundedness is also brought out through considerations
>>> pertaining to 'the self's' causal efficacy. For most people take
>>> themselves to be autonomous agents in virtue of their assumed causal
>>> powers, thus relating directly to the 'role-occupiers' _thinker of
>>> thoughts_, _initiator of actions_. These roles point to common modes of
>>> assumed self-identity. How, more precisely, do we identify as such
>>> thinkers and agents? One way, already mentioned, is through 'this-ness':
>>> the felt value attached to the idea that _I, this particular self_, as
>>> opposed to some other self, am the agent of certain actions. Another way
>>> we construe ourselves to be thinking agents is through the feeling that our
>>> deliberate actions are not the result of impersonal factors but, rather, of
>>> special causal powers pertaining to free-will. --- _our_ free-will. We
>>> feel, in other words, that our choices are not blindly determined, but that
>>> with any deliberate action, we could have chosen to
>>> do otherwise. The feeling that one is able to exert unique causal powers
>>> on the world through one's own thoughts and actions add weight to the
>>> feeling of _being_ a separate, autonomous entity. Identifying as a (free)
>>> thinker and agent would thus plausibly evoke a sense of boundary between
>>> our 'free' selves and the world with which we interact (including other
>>> free agents).
>>>
>>> "But the feelings of freedom do not seem to stop there. Like 'this-ness',
>>> the belief in one's free-will seems to endow those free thoughts and
>>> actions with value. One takes particular pride or shame not only in the
>>> apparent fact that _this_, as opposed _that_ kind of action. It is through
>>> this feeling of freedom that one feel's responsible for one's actions. In
>>> the extensive literature of free-will, it has been noted that anyone who
>>> _truly_ believed there was no real choice in the matter --- that our every
>>> action was determined from birth --- would not fully experience the
>>> emotions of pride, shame, guilt, praise or blame, to name but a few. It
>>> seems that for these emotions to be properly felt, one must, at _some_
>>> level, buy into the assumption that it is possible to have chosen
>>> differently. We do not usually attribute heartfelt praise or blame to
>>> behaviours we perceive as mechanistic or random (if we do, then it tends to
>>> be through unconsciously anthropomorphising in
>>> animate objects such as stalling cars and red traffic lights!). The
>>> emotional investment in the outcome of one's actions serves to intensify
>>> the sense of boundary between self-as-agent and other (or self-as-thinker
>>> and other). The associated roles, 'thinker of thoughts' and 'initiator of
>>> actions' thus depict distinct and repetitive _modes_ in which we, as
>>> subjects, identify with things (in the capacity of these roles),
>>> underscoring the sense of boundary between self and other. And the
>>> associated sense of boundedness is best evidenced through the value we
>>> attach to being, it would seem, a free author of our actions.
>>>
>>> "The reflections developed in this discussion on both 'this-ness' and
>>> 'autonomy' (introduced by Baron) help to illuminate, from two different
>>> angles, the sense of ontological uniqueness that we have. The sense of
>>> being a uniquely separate _thing_, whether as something special, or as
>>> something autonomous, is strong evidence for our reflexive ascription of
>>> boundedness to the self we assume we are. We can also note its connection
>>> with the long-running debate on free-will, and with the fact that many
>>> philosophers, such as Kant and Frankfurt, have chosen to identify the most
>>> central aspect of our 'selves' with 'the will'."
>>>
>>> (Albahari, Miri, 'Analytical Buddhism: The Two-tiered Illusion of
>>> Self ', pp.96-97)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
>>>
>>>
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