Aristotle believed there are four types of actions: voluntary, involuntary non-voluntary, and compulsory. Voluntary actions are actions that an individual does without outside influence and with absolute knowledge of the situation and the outcome. One example of a voluntary action is I go to college to get an education to better myself and receive the outcome of a degree. Another example of a voluntary action is noticing a red traffic light, proceeding through a red light, and knowing of the consequence of a ticket if caught. Actions done without knowing some aspect of the action are titled involuntary. This unknown aspect, if known, may have yielded an altered result. An example of an involuntary action is striking a parked vehicle with your car and not leaving a note but, not knowing, a witness wrote down your car’s information. If the individual knew a witness observed the damage to the vehicle, they may have decided on a different course of action. Nonvoluntary actions are that in which a part of the information is unknown and the individual does not care to know the missing information. An example of this is a mother wondering where her children have gone but, assuming they are playing in their room without checking. Although, the mother may care about her children, she does not know if the children are in their room and does not care to check. When an action is partly due to another factor outside of yourself this is named compulsory. An example of a compulsory action is a man selling his favorite car because someone offered him an insane amount of money for it and he is tight on money; in this circumstance the outside factor affecting his decision is the insane amount of money. Without that amount being offered the man woul...
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...ant someone’s candy they are vicious. A virtuous person could commit all actions as long as they went with their wants and reason to be good. Vicious people would also commit all actions as long as it followed their want to be bad and reason for being bad.
Lastly, godlike people strive always for the greater good because that is their aspiration in life. An example of this is a person devoting their life to helping others. A person does this because of their want to be good. If a person becomes a mass murder, they are a brute because they have the aspiration to commit bad acts. A godlike person could only do voluntary acts because they would have to have all the information to make the best decision towards the greater good. Brutish people would also only commit voluntary actions because all the information must be present or the action could accidently turn good.
It also follows that God, not as benevolent as could be hoped, prefers the maximization of good (2) as opposed to the minimization of evil (1). This is disquieting for the individual who might be the victim of suffering a “greater good.”
In respect to the arguments of Ayer and Holbach, the dilemma of determinism and its compatibility with that of free will are found to be in question. Holbach makes a strong case for hard determinism in his System of Nature, in which he defines determinism to be a doctrine that everything and most importantly human actions are caused, and it follows that we are not free and therefore haven’t any moral responsibility in regard to our actions. For Ayer, a compatibilist believing that free will is compatible with determinism, it is the reconciliation and dissolution of the problem of determinism and moral responsibility with free willing that is argued. Ayer believes that this problem can be dissolved by the clarification of language usage and the clarification of what freedom is in relationship to those things that oppose freedom or restrain it. In either case, what is at stake is the free will of an agent, and whether or not that agent is morally responsible. What is to be seen from a discussion of these arguments is the applicability and validity of these two philosophies to situations where one must make a choice, and whether or not that person is acting freely and is thus responsible given his current situation. In this vein, the case of Socrates’ imprisonment and whether or not he acted freely in respect to his decision to leave or stay in prison can be evaluated by the discussion of the arguments presented in respect to the nature of free will in its reconciliation with determinism in the compatibilist vein and its absence in the causality of hard determinism.
there is a good and an evil side to all people, some people are more
The second, and more complicated, of Campbell’s requirements is to define what constitutes a “free act.” There are two parts to this definition. The first necessitates “that the act must be one of which the person judged can be regarded as the sole author” (378). This point raises the question of how one can determine authorship. For certainly “the raw material of impulses and capacities that constitute [one’s] hereditary endowment” cannot be determined by the individual and surely have an impact on his inner acts (378). Further, the individual cannot control “the material and social environment in which he is destined to live” and these factors must influence his inner acts as well (378). Campbell allows that, while these aspects do have an impact on one’s inner acts, people in general “make allowances” for them, and still feel morally responsible for one’s self (378). In other words, one recognizes the effects of hereditary and environment on his inner acts, but acknowledges that his self can and should still be held morally responsible, as it can overcome these factors. Thus, Campbell claims, sole authorship of an act is possible. The second part of this definition of a “free act” requires that one could have acted otherwise because one could have chosen otherwise (380). With this final presupposition, Campbell states that an act is a free act if and only if...
As a result, this essay will prove that one is held morally responsible for any act that was performed or chosen by them, which qualifies as a human act. The Libertarian view consists of one’s actions not being determined; however, have free will, which is a precondition for moral responsibility. Basically put, human acts are not determined by precedent causes. Libertarianism is one of the views under incompatibilism along with Hard Determinism. The opposite of these views is Compatibilism.
Mittleman states that the reason for both potentials is the free will and ability to choose. I personally agree with this statement, because I believe that someone can only be truly good when understand the meaning, consequences and reason of the actions of being a good person. Althought, the Jewish tradition says that what motivates the human against the good is the hybrid divine and animal nature. I disagree of this statement, because I believe that what drives people toward for bad actions is the lack of knowledge, and understanding of consequences.
... strive fore, it is my belief that all people are immoral, and strives to become less immoral. So which is more beneficial Morality or immorality? A just person is happier than the unjust person for this reason, which the just person's soul is in order, whereas the unjust person's soul is in decay and disorder. Secondly, the just person's desires are satisfied, since their rational parts limits their desires, whereas the unjust person's desires are rampant and out of control. In conclusion, I would have to agree and disagree with Socrates, for all people are immoral and they strive to become moral, but no one person is ever truly moral, although it is favorable for a person to strive towards morality and value it. On one point I would have to agree with Thrasymacus, on the basis that all people are hypocrites and many only give the illusion of morality, but in reality they are immoral. Overall, a person who strives for morality is superior to anyone who is immoral. Morality is both instrumentally and intrinsically valuable and when it’s compared to immorality, we learn that morality is a conduct of happiness, because morality is a personal choice, to do the things that are just.
...e to what brings pleasure. That person made a choice and I firmly believe actions can be voluntary and feelings playing a role with action as Aristotle believe.
What is affirmative action? Put simply affirmative action is a program by which society tries to even out the playing field and repay those of the minority by placing them in a higher advantage that they would not have otherwise.
Structure and agency are two theoretical terms used to explain the capacity at which we as people are able to be individuals, and to what extent those influences limit our individuality. Structure refers to the ways in which a society is organized. Agency refers to the behaviors and actions of the individuals within the social structure. Agency is limited by the structure due to cultural barriers and inequalities within the structure. In this essay, I will present an overview of why critical theorists are concerned with those inequalities, and I will further identify the problems within the system contributing to the unequal access to the public sphere, relating specifically to class and gender inequalities.
How people define what is good and what is evil can be completely different as well as their opinions on whether or not people are naturally good or bad. Within Stephen King’s The Stand, certain characteristics are easily distinguished as good such as being “thoughtful” (145) or having “a sense of responsibility” (145) which many seek to achieve. Nonetheless, the statement that such attributes are “rare” (145) implies that many give into the pull of evil and cause the number of people who are truly good to decline. This draws up the question as to what really determines evil. There is a further universal set of rules that are ...
They say that life is what you make of it. Though there is much in the fabric of Shakespeare’s tragedies that complicates the relationship between action and accountability with regard to the tragic heroes, it cannot be assumed, simply because they find themselves in a difficult position, that they are engulfed and rendered powerless by the events that unfold in their midst. Even Iago, Shakespeare’s evil incarnate, remarks, “ ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus…we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts” (1.3:316-326). Circumstance, then, simply does not negate guilt or responsibility. Given reason, we are capable both of the good and the evil behavior that seals our fate. This idea is especially important to a moral reading of Macbeth The true calamity of this and all other tragic Shakespearean plays lies not in the circumstances that Macbeth finds himself in, but what he chooses to make of those circumstances. Ultimately, it is Macbeth himself who serves as the instrument of his downfall. By instilling his character with reason, judgment, consciousness, and at least some degree of morality, Shakespeare proves Macbeth capable of resisting the impulse to carry out his infamous dark deeds, and thus implicitly tells us that despite our circumstances, we must all be held accountable (as Macbeth certainly is) for our own actions.
The Social Action Theory and Symbolic Interactionism Max Weber believed that individuals were the key to society. He developed social action theory, the purpose of which was to find out why individuals function in certain ways. He thought that every social action performed by an individual had a meaning attached to it. Social actions are the result of conscious thought processes that take into consideration the reactions of other individuals. Weber identified four types of social action which include, reason (an instrumentally rational or calculated action), value or rational action (determined by belief), emotion or effectual action (dependent upon the feelings of the individual), and traditional action (determined by habit).
people who were poor or badly educated, elevating them to positions for which they were
There are some major factors that may be considered on what good people do bad things. In the article, Ronald developed a list of six factors using the word WIZARD. The first factor he talks about is the W, which stands for weakness of will; he talks about how people just become so weak when sorting out everything in their life. People try to do it on their own way thinking they know everything and end up doing something irrelevant. Duska gives an example of a desert to tell us that if we want to lose weight we should not be having desert but since we are very weak in sorting out things in life we might not be able to give up on our desert. Everyone has to overcome their own temptation, for example in a game the player cannot ask someone else to help them overcome their temptation. There are some desires which can be called as “greed”. Ronald uses another example of an Abraham Lincoln where Lincoln throw a man out from his office as the man was trying to bribe to him; when people ask Abraham he says the guy was too close to his price which means everyone has their own weak will and desire but the best way to a...