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| Author: |
kyle |
| Blog URL: |
http://www.handshakesdemo.com/blogs/since
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| Tags: |
state early see star people river special for had fact |
| Description: |
| In Descartes' process of verification, he verifies things by himself, but what he finds is the subjective truth. In trying to find a way to verify truth, Descartes eliminates everything but what can not be doubted: Can I affirm that I possess any one of those things which I have been speaking of as pertaining to the nature of body? On stopping to consider them with closer attention, and on reviewing all of them, I find none of which I can say that it belongs to me; to enumerate them again would be |
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Augustine, however, emphasizes that free will does exist. Is this not a contrary position? Or does the concept of free will versus grace constitute another ambiguous, inexplicable belief-understanding? The idea that we, as human beings alone, have the capacity to determine our own life (whether we turn toward sin or virtue) is the idea of free will. It is our choice and, thus, our responsibility to choose the path of righteousness or the path of sin. This concepts serves to distance god from the tragedy of a human taking the wrong path and suffering the consequences. Because of free will, we cannot blame god for this travesty. The concept of grace, however, distances the ethical human being from the respect of having chosen a positive path.
Simone de Beauvoir is obviously trying to address the weakest point of Sartre's philosophical exposition of existentialism -- what sort of value system arises from the existential outlook? De Beauvoir wants to show how existential assumptions actually do lead to an ethics of a non-classical sort. In speaking of the freedom of men from the deterministic bounds of society, religion, or the material world de Beauvoir states: "[I]t appears to us that by turning toward this freedom we are going to discover a principle of action whose range will be universal (23)." This seems to be an important point as it addresses directly the accusation that the very "existential freedom" of man is a destructive and horrific isolation of each individual into self-justifying random action. Later de Beauvoir states that it is actually freedom itself which is this universal. "At the same time that [freedom] requires the realization of concrete ends, of particular projects, it requires itself universally (24)." She then continues to set up an equality between being free and being moral. Even considering the starting point of ambiguity, how can freedom in terms of consciousness become the basis for any morality? So whatever you do is moral as long as you choose to do it?
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