First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Bulliet
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The Way

One of the few predictable opportunities for the exercise of free will that comes the way of most human beings is the bestowal of names upon their children. To be sure, local or national custom may legally restrict or otherwise limit the scope of that freedom in some cases; but by and large, there is normally some choice to be made, and the beneficiary of the choice, the child, is inevitably powerless to influence it.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Youpa Andrew
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Theory Of Human Nature ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
The Way

This book offers a reading of Spinoza’s moral philosophy. Specifically, it is a philosophical exposition of his masterpiece, the Ethics, that focuses on his moral philosophy. Central to the reading I defend is the view that there is a way of life that is best for human beings, and what makes it best is that it is the way of life that is in agreement with human nature. I begin this study with Spinoza’s theory of emotions, and I do so because it is one of two doctrines that fundamentally shape the structure and content of his vision of the way of life that is best. The other is his view that striving to persevere in being is the actual essence of a finite thing (3p7). Together these make up the foundation of Spinoza’s moral philosophy, and it is from these two doctrines that his moral philosophy emerges. In saying this I am not denying that his substance monism, the doctrines of mind-body parallelism and identity, the tripartite theory of knowledge, and his denial of libertarian free will, among others, also belong to the foundation of his moral philosophy. Each of these contributes in its way to the portrait of the best way of life, and they play important roles in the chapters that follow. But it is his theory of emotions and the theory of human nature on which it rests that are chiefly responsible for the structure and content of his moral philosophy....

Free will

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Adult Human ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Will ◽  
Freedom Of Action ◽  
The Way

‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ‘What is it to act (or choose) freely?’, and ‘What is it to be morally responsible for one’s actions (or choices)?’ These two questions are closely connected, for freedom of action is necessary for moral responsibility, even if it is not sufficient. Philosophers give very different answers to these questions, hence also to two more specific questions about ourselves: (1) Are we free agents? and (2) Can we be morally responsible for what we do? Answers to (1) and (2) range from ‘Yes, Yes’ to ‘No, No’ – via ‘Yes, No’ and various degrees of ‘Perhaps’, ‘Possibly’, and ‘In a sense’. (The fourth pair of outright answers, ‘No, Yes’, is rare, but appears to be accepted by some Protestants.) Prominent among the ‘Yes, Yes’ sayers are the compatibilists, who hold that free will is compatible with determinism. Briefly, determinism is the view that everything that happens is necessitated by what has already gone before, in such a way that nothing can happen otherwise than it does. According to compatibilists, freedom is compatible with determinism because freedom is essentially just a matter of not being constrained or hindered in certain ways when one acts or chooses. Thus normal adult human beings in normal circumstances are able to act and choose freely. No one is holding a gun to their heads. They are not drugged, or in chains, or subject to a psychological compulsion. They are therefore wholly free to choose and act even if their whole physical and psychological make-up is entirely determined by things for which they are in no way ultimately responsible – starting with their genetic inheritance and early upbringing. Incompatibilists hold that freedom is not compatible with determinism. They point out that if determinism is true, then every one of one’s actions was determined to happen as it did before one was born. They hold that one cannot be held to be truly free and finally morally responsible for one’s actions in this case. They think compatibilism is a ‘wretched subterfuge…, a petty word-jugglery’, as Kant put it (1788: 189–90). It entirely fails to satisfy our natural convictions about the nature of moral responsibility. The incompatibilists have a good point, and may be divided into two groups. Libertarians answer ‘Yes, Yes’ to questions (1) and (2). They hold that we are indeed free and fully morally responsible agents, and that determinism must therefore be false. Their great difficulty is to explain why the falsity of determinism is any better than the truth of determinism when it comes to establishing our free agency and moral responsibility. For suppose that not every event is determined, and that some events occur randomly, or as a matter of chance. How can our claim to moral responsibility be improved by the supposition that it is partly a matter of chance or random outcome that we and our actions are as they are? The second group of incompatibilists is less sanguine. They answer ‘No, No’ to questions (1) and (2). They agree with the libertarians that the truth of determinism rules out genuine moral responsibility, but argue that the falsity of determinism cannot help. Accordingly, they conclude that we are not genuinely free agents or genuinely morally responsible, whether determinism is true or false. One of their arguments can be summarized as follows. When one acts, one acts in the way one does because of the way one is. So to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions, one would have to be truly responsible for the way one is: one would have to be causa sui, or the cause of oneself, at least in certain crucial mental respects. But nothing can be causa sui – nothing can be the ultimate cause of itself in any respect. So nothing can be truly morally responsible. Suitably developed, this argument against moral responsibility seems very strong. But in many human beings, the experience of choice gives rise to a conviction of absolute responsibility that is untouched by philosophical arguments. This conviction is the deep and inexhaustible source of the free will problem: powerful arguments that seem to show that we cannot be morally responsible in the ultimate way that we suppose keep coming up against equally powerful psychological reasons why we continue to believe that we are ultimately morally responsible.

Free will

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Adult Human ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Will ◽  
Freedom Of Action ◽  
The Way

‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ’What is it to act (or choose) freely?’, and ’What is it to be morally responsible for one’s actions (or choices)?’ These two questions are closely connected, for freedom of action is necessary for moral responsibility, even if it is not sufficient. Philosophers give very different answers to these questions, hence also to two more specific questions about ourselves: (1) Are we free agents? and (2) Can we be morally responsible for what we do? Answers to (1) and (2) range from ’Yes, Yes’ to ’No, No’ – via ’Yes, No’ and various degrees of ’Perhaps’, ’Possibly’, and ’In a sense’. (The fourth pair of outright answers, ’No, Yes’, is rare, but appears to be accepted by some Protestants.) Prominent among the ’Yes, Yes’ sayers are the compatibilists, who hold that free will is compatible with determinism. Briefly, determinism is the view that everything that happens is necessitated by what has already gone before, in such a way that nothing can happen otherwise than it does. According to compatibilists, freedom is compatible with determinism because freedom is essentially just a matter of not being constrained or hindered in certain ways when one acts or chooses. Thus normal adult human beings in normal circumstances are able to act and choose freely. No one is holding a gun to their heads. They are not drugged, or in chains, or subject to a psychological compulsion. They are therefore wholly free to choose and act even if their whole physical and psychological make-up is entirely determined by things for which they are in no way ultimately responsible – starting with their genetic inheritance and early upbringing. Incompatibilists hold that freedom is not compatible with determinism. They point out that if determinism is true, then every one of one’s actions was determined to happen as it did before one was born. They hold that one cannot be held to be truly free and finally morally responsible for one’s actions in this case. They think compatibilism is a ‘wretched subterfuge…, a petty word-jugglery’, as Kant put it (1788: 189–90). It entirely fails to satisfy our natural convictions about the nature of moral responsibility. The incompatibilists have a good point, and may be divided into two groups. Libertarians answer ’Yes, Yes’ to questions (1) and (2). They hold that we are indeed free and fully morally responsible agents, and that determinism must therefore be false. Their great difficulty is to explain why the falsity of determinism is any better than the truth of determinism when it comes to establishing our free agency and moral responsibility. For suppose that not every event is determined, and that some events occur randomly, or as a matter of chance. How can our claim to moral responsibility be improved by the supposition that it is partly a matter of chance or random outcome that we and our actions are as they are? The second group of incompatibilists is less sanguine. They answer ’No, No’ to questions (1) and (2). They agree with the libertarians that the truth of determinism rules out genuine moral responsibility, but argue that the falsity of determinism cannot help. Accordingly, they conclude that we are not genuinely free agents or genuinely morally responsible, whether determinism is true or false. One of their arguments can be summarized as follows. When one acts, one acts in the way one does because of the way one is. So to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions, one would have to be truly responsible for the way one is: one would have to be causa sui, or the cause of oneself, at least in certain crucial mental respects. But nothing can be causa sui – nothing can be the ultimate cause of itself in any respect. So nothing can be truly morally responsible. Suitably developed, this argument against moral responsibility seems very strong. But in many human beings, the experience of choice gives rise to a conviction of absolute responsibility that is untouched by philosophical arguments. This conviction is the deep and inexhaustible source of the free will problem: powerful arguments that seem to show that we cannot be morally responsible in the ultimate way that we suppose keep coming up against equally powerful psychological reasons why we continue to believe that we are ultimately morally responsible.

Concluding Part I

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-186
Author(s):  
Helga Varden
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Way

To conclude this first part of the book, let me revisit a core challenge mentioned in the general Introduction.1 Insofar as Kantians humanize their agents by showing them to be more embodied and social (and not only rational), as I have done, they appear to encounter a new problem: their accounts of human agency appear not to be distinctively Kantian. This Hegelian “empty formalism” line maintains that the more embodied and social the Kantian conception of the human agent, the less that conception can capture Kant’s emphasis on the noumenon, how human beings are distinct from all other animals in that they can act in truly free ways—they have “free will”—which lies at the heart of Kant’s conception of morality. Kantian ethicists therefore face a dilemma: either they must choose formalism, in which case they cannot capture the (importance of the) embodied, social nature of human beings, or they lose the formalism distinctive of Kant’s position. Kantians cannot have it both ways. Having chosen the path of humanizing the Kantian moral agent and having argued that it is the path that Kant himself chose (even if Kant and I disagree on how best to understand issues of sex, love, and gender), it is important to explain why my theory has not lost Kant’s formalism, and its distinctive value, along the way. I owe an explanation as to why my theory can capture the philosophical insights in, and even requires, Kant’s distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, of transcendental freedom, and a “free will.”...

The Christian Theodicist's Appeal to Love

1993 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel ◽  
Frances Howard-Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Love Relationship ◽  
Good For ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility ◽  
The Way

Many Christian theodicists believe that God's creating us with the capacity to love Him and each other justifies, in large part, God's permitting evil. For example, after reminding us that, according to Christian doctrine, the supreme good for human beings is to enter into a reciprocal love relationship with God, Vincent Brümmer recently wrote:In creating human persons in order to love them, God necessarily assumes vulnerability in relation to them. In fact, in this relation, he becomes even more vulnerable than we do, since he cannot count on the steadfastness of our love the way we can count on his steadfastness… If God did not grant us the ability to sin and cause affliction to him and to one another, we would not have the kind of free and autonomous existence necessary to enter into a relation of love with God and with one another… Far from contradicting the value which the free will defence places upon the freedom and responsibility of human persons, the idea of a loving God necessarily entails it. In this way we can see that the free will defence is based on the love of God rather than on the supposed intrinsic value of human freedom and responsibility.

Reading Roman Pride

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yelena Baraz
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Peculiar Feature ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Social Concept ◽  
Emotional Landscape ◽  
The Way

Pride is pervasive in Roman texts, as an emotion and a political and social concept implicated in ideas of power. This study examines the Roman discourse of pride from two distinct complementary perspectives. The first is based on scripts, mini-stories told to illustrate what pride is, how it arises and develops, and where it fits within the Roman emotional landscape. The second is semantic, and draws attention to differences between terms within the pride field. The peculiar feature of Roman pride that emerges is that it appears exclusively as a negative emotion, attributed externally and condemned, up to the Augustan period. This previously unnoticed lack of expression of positive pride in republican discourse is a result of the way the Roman republican elite articulates its values as anti-monarchical and is committed, within the governing class, to power-sharing and a kind of equality. The book explores this uniquely Roman articulation of pride attributed to people, places, and institutions and traces the partial rehabilitation of pride that begins in the texts of the Augustan poets at a time of great political change. Reading for pride produces innovative readings of texts that range from Plautus to Ausonius, with a major focus on Cicero, Livy, Vergil, and other Augustan poets.

The Atonement and the Solution to the Problems of Guilt and Shame

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers shame in its major varieties and shows that each of these kinds of shame has a defeat in the atonement of Christ. It then considers guilt in all its elements, including the brokenness in the psyche of the wrongdoer and the bad effects on the world resulting from his wrongdoing, and it shows that, on the interpretation of the doctrine of the atonement argued for in this book, the atonement can remedy all human guilt. Consequently, through the atonement of Christ, a person in grace is freed from guilt and reconciled with God and with other human beings as well, and his guilt is defeated in his flourishing. On this interpretation of the doctrine, one can see the way in which the atonement of Christ makes sense as a solution to the main problem that the atonement was meant to remedy.

Law as a Malleable Artifact

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Way ◽  
Concept Of Law

Law is not a natural kind, but is instead an artifact. Like all artifacts, the artifact of law is created by human beings. But what human beings create can be re-created, and thus the artifact that is law is always open to modification or revision. And if law is open to modification or revision, then so too is our concept of it. This chapter explores the way in which one form of jurisprudential scholarship is that which seeks not to identify what our concept of law now is, but, rather, what our concept of law ought to be, in light of any number of moral or pragmatic goals.

Engels on women, the family, class and gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110000
Author(s):  
Sheila Margaret McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Women's Oppression ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

This article looks at Engels’s writings to show that his ideas about the role of labour in the evolution of human beings in a dialectical relationship between human beings and nature is a crucial starting point for understanding human society and is correct in its essentials. It is important for understanding that we developed as a species on the basis of social cooperation. The way human beings produce and reproduce themselves, the method of historical materialism, provides the basis for understanding how class and women’s oppression arose and how that can explain LGBTQ oppression. Although Engels’s analysis was once widely accepted by the socialist movement, it has mainly been ignored or opposed by academic researchers and others, including geographers, and more recently by Marxist feminists. However, anthropological research from the 1960s and 1970s as well as more recent anthropological and archaeological research provide overwhelming evidence for the validity of Engels’s argument that there were egalitarian, pre-class societies without women’s oppression. However, much remains to be explained about the transition to class societies. Engels’s analysis of the impact of industrial capitalism on gender roles shows how society shapes our behaviour. Engels’s method needs to be constantly reasserted against those who would argue that we are a competitive, aggressive species who require rules to suppress our true nature, and that social development is driven by ideas, not by changes in the way we produce and reproduce ourselves.

Can animals sing? On birdsong, music and meaning

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hektor KT Yan
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
A Value ◽  
Music And Meaning ◽  
To Come ◽  
Factual Issue ◽  
The Way

This article deals with conceptual questions regarding claims to the effect that humans and animals share artistic abilities such as the possession of music. Recent works focusing on animals, from such as Hollis Taylor and Dominique Lestel, are discussed. The attribution of artistic traits in human and animal contexts is examined by highlighting the importance of issues relating to categorization and evaluation in cross-species studies. An analogy between the denial of major attributes to animals and a form of racism is drawn in order to show how questions pertaining to meaning can impact on our understanding of animal abilities. One of the major theses presented is that the question of whether animals possess music cannot be answered by a methodology that is uninformed by the way concepts such as music or art function in the context of human life: the ascription of music to humans or non-humans is a value-laden act rather than a factual issue regarding how to represent an entity. In order to see how humans and animals share a life in common, it is necessary to come to the reflective realization that how human beings understand themselves can impact on their perception and experience of human and non-human animals.

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