display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
2 ideas
| 23878 | Weakness of will is the inadequacy of the original impetus to carry through the action [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is naïve to be astonished when we do not stick to firm resolutions. Something stimulated the resolution, but that something was not powerful enough to bring us to the point of carrying it out. Making the resolution may even have exhausted the stimulus. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.169) | |
| A reaction: Socrates says it is a change of belief. Aristotle says it is a desire overcoming a belief. Weil gives a third way: that it is a fading in the strength of the original belief/desire impetus. |
| 24184 | What matters about an action is not its aim, but the origin of its compulsion [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every act should be considered from the point of view not of its object but of its compulsion. The question is not 'What is the aim?' It is 'What is the origin?'. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity') | |
| A reaction: Doubtful. It is notoriously difficult to know the origins of our motivations. What of the well meaning fool, who has nice origins for motives, but misjudges the aims? |