display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 8007 | Aristotle never discusses free will [Aristotle, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never gets involved in the riddles of later philosophers about free will. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a very great philosopher who was intensely interested in the well-springs of human action. 'Free will' never crossed his mind. This is because free will is nonsense. Owen Flanagan is best on this subject (Ideas 5345 and 5332). |
| 12961 | For an action to be 'free', it must be deliberate as well as unconstrained [Aristotle, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle has rightly noted that we are not prepared to call an action 'free' unless as well as being unconstrained it is also deliberate. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b06) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 2.21 | |
| A reaction: This is quite an important message for David Hume. I love the respect which Leibniz accords Aristotle, at a time when he was becoming thoroughly unfashionable. This is the nearest Aristotle gets to discussing so-called 'free will'. |
| 4118 | A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113b18) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately Aristotle believes that free will is an absolute fact, once influences are stripped away. He should have questioned more deeply. |
| 20192 | Aristotle assesses whether people are responsible, and if they are it was voluntary [Aristotle, by Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle makes the concept of moral responsibility more fundamental than the concept of the voluntary, the reverse of the typical contemporary approach. Given that we hold persons responsible, such acts must be voluntary. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110-ish) by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind 4.2 | |
| A reaction: Good for Aristotle. Whether we hold people responsible or not is widely understood, but whether they are 'free' to act is obscure, and may even be incoherent. We should look at praise and blame, and (above all) excuses. |