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Francisco Suarez was a principal figure in the transition from
scholastic to modern natural law, summing up a long and rich
tradition and providing much material both for adoption and
controversy in the seventeenth century and beyond. Most of the
selections translated in this volume are from 'On the Laws and God
the Law-Giver (De legibus ac Deo legislatore, 1612)', a work that
is considered one of Suarez' greatest achievements. Working within
the framework originally elaborated by Thomas Aquinas, Suarez
treated humanity as the subject of four different laws, which
together guide human beings toward the ends of which they are
capable. Suarez achieved a double objective in his systematic
account of moral activity. First, he examined and synthesized the
entire scholastic heritage of thinking on this topic, identifying
the key issues of debate and the key authors who had formulated the
different positions most incisively. Second, he went beyond this
heritage of authorities to present a new account of human moral
action and its relationship to the law. Treading a fine line
between those to whom moral directives are purely a matter of
reason and those to whom they are purely a matter of a commanding
will, Suarez attempted to show how both human reason and the
command of the lawgiver dictate the moral space of human action.
Francisco Suarez was a principal figure in the transition from
scholastic to modern natural law, summing up a long and rich
tradition and providing much material both for adoption and
controversy in the seventeenth century and beyond.Most of the
selections translated in this volume are from "On the Laws and God
the Law-Giver" ("De legibus ac Deo legislatore, " 1612), a work
that is considered one of Suarez's greatest achievements. Working
within the framework originally elaborated by Thomas Aquinas,
Suarez treated humanity as the subject of four different laws,
which together guide human beings toward the ends of which they are
capable. Suarez achieved a double objective in his systematic
account of moral activity. First, he examined and synthesized the
entire scholastic heritage of thinking on this topic, identifying
the key issues of debate and the key authors who had formulated the
different positions most incisively. Second, he went beyond this
heritage of authorities to present a new account of human moral
action and its relationship to the law.Treading a fine line between
those to whom moral directives are purely a matter of reason and
those to whom they are purely a matter of a commanding will, Suarez
attempted to show how both human reason and the command of the
lawgiver dictate the moral space of human action.The Liberty Fund
edition is a revised version of that prepared for the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace by translators Gwladys L.
Williams, Ammi Brown, and John Waldron, with revisions by Henry
Davis, S. J.Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Jesuit priest, was
professor of theology at the University of Salamanca in
Spain.Annabel S. Brett is a Fellow, Tutor, and University Lecturer
in History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.Knud Haakonssen
is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex,
England.
Thomas Pink's Very Short Introduction to Free Will is an accessible and stimulating investigation of one of the most important and enduring problems of Western philosophy. He argues that in order to get clear about freedom and its implications for morality, we need to pay proper attention to the arguments of the philosophers of the past, and especially their views on the will.
Thomas Pink offers a new approach to the problem of free will. Do
we have control of how we act, so that we are free to act in more
than one way, and does it matter to morality whether we do? Pink
argues that what matters to morality is not in fact the freedom to
do otherwise, but something more primitive - a basic capacity or
power to determine for ourselves what we do. This capacity might or
might not take the form of a freedom to act in more than one way,
and it might or might not be compatible with causal determinism.
What really matters to morality is that it is we who determine what
we do. What we do must not simply be a function of powers or
capacities for which we are not responsible, or a matter of mere
chance. At the heart of moral responsibility is a distinctive form
of power that is quite unlike ordinary causation - a power by which
we determine outcomes in a way quite differently from the way
ordinary causes determine outcomes. Pink examines how this power is
involved in action, and how the nature of action permits the
operation of such a power to determine it.
Thomas Pink offers a new approach to the problem of free will. Do
we have control of how we act, so that we are free to act in more
than one way, and does it matter to morality whether we do? Pink
argues that what matters to morality is not in fact the freedom to
do otherwise, but something more primitive - a basic capacity or
power to determine for ourselves what we do. This capacity might or
might not take the form of a freedom to act in more than one way,
and it might or might not be compatible with causal determinism.
What really matters to morality is that it is we who determine what
we do. What we do must not simply be a function of powers or
capacities for which we are not responsible, or a matter of mere
chance. At the heart of moral responsibility is a distinctive form
of power that is quite unlike ordinary causation - a power by which
we determine outcomes in a way quite differently from the way
ordinary causes determine outcomes. Pink examines how this power is
involved in action, and how the nature of action permits the
operation of such a power to determine it.
This 1996 book presents an alternative theory of the will - of our
capacity for decision making. The book argues that taking a
decision to act is something we do, and do freely - as much an
action as the actions which our decisions explain - and that our
freedom of action depends on this capacity for free
decision-making. But decision-making is no ordinary action.
Decisions to act also have a special executive function, that of
ensuring the rationality of the further actions which they explain.
This executive function makes decision-making an action importantly
unlike any other, with its own distinctive rationality. Pink's
highly persuasive study uses this theory of the will to provide
accounts of freedom, action and rational choice. The author argues
that, in a tradition that runs from Hobbes to Davidson and
Frankfurt, Anglo-American philosophy has misrepresented the
common-sense psychology of our freedom and action - a psychology
which this book now presents and defends.
This 1996 book presents an alternative theory of the will - of our
capacity for decision making. The book argues that taking a
decision to act is something we do, and do freely - as much an
action as the actions which our decisions explain - and that our
freedom of action depends on this capacity for free
decision-making. But decision-making is no ordinary action.
Decisions to act also have a special executive function, that of
ensuring the rationality of the further actions which they explain.
This executive function makes decision-making an action importantly
unlike any other, with its own distinctive rationality. Pink's
highly persuasive study uses this theory of the will to provide
accounts of freedom, action and rational choice. The author argues
that, in a tradition that runs from Hobbes to Davidson and
Frankfurt, Anglo-American philosophy has misrepresented the
common-sense psychology of our freedom and action - a psychology
which this book now presents and defends.
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