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Single Idea 5348
[filed under theme 20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
]
Full Idea
There are two main pictures of the good person: there is the 'good character', and there is the 'principled actor'. ..The first picture is non-intellectualist, and the second is intellectualist.
Gist of Idea
Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character'
Source
Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.145)
Book Ref
Flanagan,Owen: 'The Problem of the Soul' [Basic Books 2003], p.145
A Reaction
The second ideal elevates the principle itself above the actor who carries it out. Presumably consistency is a virtue, so a good character will at least pay some attention to principles. A good magistrate comes out the same in both views.
The
23 ideas
from 'The Problem of the Soul'
5332
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People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this
[Flanagan]
|
5333
|
Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be
[Flanagan]
|
5334
|
We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom
[Flanagan]
|
5335
|
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle
[Flanagan]
|
5336
|
Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing
[Flanagan]
|
5338
|
Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling
[Flanagan]
|
5339
|
Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them
[Flanagan]
|
5340
|
Explanation does not entail prediction
[Flanagan]
|
5341
|
Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system
[Flanagan]
|
5342
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Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser
[Flanagan]
|
5343
|
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free
[Flanagan]
|
5344
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Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living
[Flanagan]
|
5345
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We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way
[Flanagan]
|
5346
|
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible
[Flanagan]
|
5347
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Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation
[Flanagan]
|
5348
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Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character'
[Flanagan]
|
5349
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For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion
[Flanagan]
|
5350
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The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE
[Flanagan]
|
5351
|
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same
[Flanagan]
|
5352
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The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds'
[Flanagan]
|
5353
|
The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography
[Flanagan]
|
5354
|
We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living
[Flanagan]
|
5355
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Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason
[Flanagan]
|