display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
1850 | Without free will not only is ethical action meaningless, but also planning, commanding, praising and blaming [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: If we are not free to will in any way, but are compelled, everything that makes up ethics vanishes: pondering action, exhorting, commanding, punishing, praising, condemning. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) | |
A reaction: If doesn't require some magical 'free will' to avoid compulsions. All that is needed is freedom to enact your own willing, rather than someone else's. |
16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted. | |
From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763. |
1851 | Good applies to goals, just as truth applies to ideas in the mind [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Good applies to all goals, just as truth applies to all forms mind takes in. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) | |
A reaction: In danger of being tautological, if good is understood as no more than the goal of actions. It seems perfectly possibly to pursue a wicked end, and perhaps feel guilty about it. |