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Ideas for 'works', 'Selections from Prison Notebooks' and 'The Social Contract (tr Cress)'

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22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
7235 Without freedom of will actions lack moral significance [Rousseau]
     Full Idea: If you take away all freedom of the will, you strip a man's actions of all moral significance.
     From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4)
     A reaction: Rousseau is (in the context) guilty of the basic error of confusing freedom of action with freedom of the will. If the will has scope to act, it has freedom of action; if the will is not contrained in its decision by prior causes, it has freedom of will.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
6559 Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin]
     Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1
     A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586!