The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker — John Shaqi
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinkerLloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Philosophy
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker
Lloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Belief and doubt; Philosophy -- Introductions
Still, not upon this real difficulty in our moral judgments would I now
lay greatest stress, although it is real enough and important. In yet
another way our moral consciousness is at war with itself. In estimating
the worth of human conduct, so far as this is determined by its
initiation, we are in an almost hopeless tangle. We are more than likely
to think of other people as influenced by their environment in what they
do, of ourselves as quite original and responsible, as independent of
any such influences; or, more fully and more exactly, we are given to
referring our own bad deeds to environment, our good deeds to ourselves,
while for others we are prompted to do just the reverse, referring their
good deeds to environment, their bad deeds to themselves. Such is human
nature--not, to be sure, at its best, but common human nature; and even
when we escape the foregoing personally invidious distinctions, we
still--and this is the main point--treat self and environment as two
naturally conflicting, altogether independent sources of conduct. Two
different and independent sources of anything, [p.047] however, can only
make for conflict and contradiction. If only our courts of law could
judge responsibility either wholly from the determinations of
environment or wholly from those of personal will, or again, if only the
will and the environment could be seen as not so radically opposed, what
a simplification would ensue, and how much freer and more certain
justice would be. To venture on a variation of an aphorism, where
there's another way there is always a loophole; where there's
environment there is always a shifted responsibility; where there's a
"free will" there is always a will taken for some unperformed or
imperfectly performed deed.
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