Transcript Philosophy of Human Nature

Ways of Knowing
Augustine
2.17.10
Review
•
•
•
•
•
Medieval philosophy
Augustine
Belief and knowledge
Evil
Free-will/love
Today
•
•
•
•
Evil and desire
Free-will/choice
Free-will and responsibility
Free-will and determinism
Evil and “inordinate desire”
“Then perhaps what makes adultery evil is
inordinate desire?
• libido
• cupitas
Fear and desire
“All wicked people, just like good people, desire
to live without fear. The difference is that the
good, in desiring this, turn their love away from
things that cannot be possessed without the
fear of losing them. The wicked, on the other
hand, try to get rid of anything that prevents
them from enjoying such things securely” (360).
“Now I’ve come to my senses. I am glad that I
understand so clearly the nature of that
blameworthy cupidity that is called inordinate
desire. Obviously it is the love of those things
that one can lose against one’s will” (360).
The Great
Chain of
Being
“[O]nly the will and free choice can make the
mind a companion to cupidity…the mind is
dragged by inordinate desire into ruin and
poverty; not taking false things for true and
even defending those falsehoods
repeatedly…now withholding assent and often
shying away from clear arguments…
In the meantime cupidity carries out a reign of
terror, buffeting the whole human soul and life
with storms coming from every direction. Fear
attacks from one side and desire from the
other; from one side, anxiety; from the other,
the empty and deceptive happiness, from one
side, the agony of loosing what one loved; from
the other, the passion to acquire what one did
not have;
[F]rom the one side, the pain of an injury
received; from the other, the burning desire to
avenge it. Wherever you turn, avarice can
pinch, extravagance squander, ambition
destroy, pride swell, envy torment, apathy
crush, obstinacy incite, oppression chafe, and
countless other evils crowd the realm of
inordinate desire and run riot” (Bk. 1, Ch. 11).
“We have clearly and carefully distinguished
between two sorts of things—eternal and
temporal; and in turn between two sorts of
human beings—those who pursue and love
eternal things, and those who pursue and love
temporal things. We have determined that the
choice to follow and embrace one or the other
lies with the will, and that only the will can
depose the mind from its stronghold of power
an deprive it of right order” (Bk. 1, Ch. 16)
“All sins come about when someone turns away
from divine things that truly persist and toward
changeable and uncertain things. These things
do have their proper place, and they have a
certain beauty of their own; but when a
perverse and disordered soul pursues them it
becomes enslaved to the very things that divine
order and law command it to rule over” (Book
1, Chapter 16).
Free-will
•
•
•
•
action
decision about intentions
judgments about beliefs
control over desires
Free-will and responsibility
“If humans beings are good things, and they
cannot do right unless they so will, then they
ought to have a free will, without which they
cannot do right” (361)
Free-will and responsibility
1. “No action would be either a sin or a good
deed if it were not performed by the will, and
so both punishment and reward would be
unjust if human beings had no free will.”
2. “But it was right for there to be justice in both
reward and punishment…”
3. “Therefore, it was right for God to give free-will
to human beings” (361).
Freedom and determinism
“If that movement existed by nature or necessity,
it could in no way be blameworthy” (363).
“The movement by which the will turns from
enjoying the Creator to enjoying his creatures
belongs to the will itself. So if that movement
deserves blame…then it is not natural, but
voluntary.”
“The movement of the will is similar to the
downward movement of a stone…but the two
movements are dissimilar in this respect: the
stone has not power to check its downward
motion, but the soul is not moved to abandon
higher things and love inferior things unless it
wills to do so” (354).
Types of determinism
•
•
•
•
Theological
Sociological
Psychological
Biological/Physical
Responses to determinism
1. deny its reality, either because of the
existence of free will or on independent
grounds
2. accept its reality but argue for its
compatibility with free will
3. accept its reality and deny its compatibility
with free will
Summary
What is the source of evil-doing?
-What is evil-doing? What makes something “evil”?
1. God does not cause evil.
2. Evil is caused by inordinate desire.
3. Inordinate desire is the result of a choice/freewill.
Humans (with free-will) are the cause of evil.
Important/interesting questions
1. What is the difference and relationship
between “belief” and “knowledge”?
2. What makes something “evil”?
3. Do we have control over our desires?
4. Are we really free and responsible beings?
For next class:
Read Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
• Part 1, Question 1, Article 1 (p. 440-443).
• Part 1, Question 2, Article 1 and 2 (p. 450-452)