(Solomon, Higgins, 2010:235) Soft determinism maintains that we possess the freedom required for moral responsibility, and that this is compatible with determinism, even though determinism is true a person can still be deserving of blame if they perform a wrongful act. (Pereboom, 2009:308) The immense issue I have with soft determinism is that how can you have free will if everything is determined, this contradicts
This is supported by Paul Kurtz who states humans have the right “to satisfy their tastes” but however they shold not “impose their values on others.” For example you may want to murder someone with your free will however if you go ahead and commit the crime you are negatively effecting others in society and this is wrong. John Stuart Mill
Instead, Thoreau remarks that it is up to every man to decide for himself what is right based on his moral standards and ethics. It is important to use ones consciousness instead of their logic or rationale in order to decide what is right and what is wrong. Thoreau provides his solution to this problem by stating, “If I have unjustly wrestled a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.” Through his imagery, Thoreau introduces his idea of civil disobedience. One can infer from his quote that if one does something wrong, it is up to that person to fix what they did even if it leads to his or her
Subsequent authors applied Locke's natural right to property not only to physical products of labor but also to intellectual products as well. Citing Locke's arguments for a right of property, Blackstone directly argued for the natural right of an author to prevent unauthorized copies of his work: "When a man by the exertion of his rational powers has produced an original work, he has clearly a right to dispose of that identical work as he pleases, and any attempt to take it from him, [...] is an invasion of his right of
As a materialist Picard sees no difference between Data and himself because they are both have the same mental and physical capabilities. In arguing Data’s case materialism would have problems with the first law of logic which states “Something cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect (Foreman, p. 116).” In Picard’s view Data is the same as him so the law is not contradicted, but a strong argument can be made that Data is undeniably a man-made “thing” so it cannot possible be a “thing” and a human at the same time. Maddox’s belief that Data is just property is based on the Dualism view of the “Mind-Body Problem”. Dualist believes are that “human beings have both physical properties and mental properties. Physical properties are properties of the body while mental properties are properties
There is a moral difference between Shelton’s killing of his attackers and that of his other victims. Darby and Ames caused personal harm to Shelton and thus gave him the moral right to try and prevent any other future pain that could be caused by these men, but the other victims were combatants in the war that Shelton waged against the “system”. When looking at Darby and Ames, Shelton takes a more utilitarian approach when dealing with their killings. The government “system” is supposed to punish those who are wrong. But in the trial of Darby and Ames, only Ames was punished severely while Darby was allowed to go free.
Kant devised two different types of imperatives which allow us to make our decisions, hypothetical imperatives are the rules that we follow to attain a personal outcome or a selfish wish whereas categorical imperatives are intrinsically right. His first categorical imperative was meant to establish that humans should only act according to a law that can be universalised. ‘’Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law’’ – (Kant the moral order). The second of the imperatives is that we as humans should never use another human as a means to an end, treat them all with value. ‘’Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end’’.
Using hypnosis contradicts this idea because it releases hidden thoughts and feelings. This particular release of thoughts and feelings is shown on page 51, where Prior tells Rivers, "I don't think talking helps. It just churns things up and makes them seem more real." He is not willing to express emotion to Rivers in a fully conscious state, but he is in fact willing to undergo complete physical submission in order to let his true emotions emerge, and face his painful memories. Rivers then wonders if this particular consequence outweighs the benefits of hypnosis.
However, in the process of experience, human cannot feel the “feeling” using the concepts of that “feeling”, which is named Qualia. For example, although someone has learnt all the theories he should know to generate the sense of pain, he can’t predict the result when the sense of pain really happens. Therefore, Qualia cannot be simply identified by physical knowledge, because it is subjective, and will change with environment’s change. In order to make the argument more convictive, Frank Jackson designed an experiment to explain that Qualia is nonphysical, and
Because it engages the whole self without a fixed yardstick it can be called a personal reflection…. [I]n this reflection the self is in question; what is at stake is the definition of those inchoate evaluations which are sensed to be essential to our identity (117). Taylor makes this claim about responsibility for self in opposition to Sartre’s characterization of the human condition as nothingness and absolute freedom. Sartre derives from this condition an understanding of freedom as the radical, infinite openness of the freedom of our choices and concludes that it is this freedom that characterizes our fundamental moral dilemma. Taylor argues that it is not the weight of the openness that defines our moral selves or the moral dilemmas we face, but the fact that various choices necessarily blind and pull us in different directions.