The highest moral right is liberty and from it any other goods will follow. These secondary rights could include freedom to get married, or be a musician, but these are to be pursued privately. Negative liberty is “freedom from”, only when an individual is free to make his own decisions and actions without coercion is a person truly free (Machan 5). This “freedom from” emphasizes right before good. According to Hospers The essential ingredient in all freedom from coercion by other is one’s basic and inalienable right; it is fundamental to human survival and the development of the self (Machan 8).
Personality and moral self explain how and why human beings make free choices. The libertarianism theory has been explained by CA Campbell, who said that human beings see themselves as free agents and therefore accept moral responsibility for their actions. Humans must accept responsibility for these actions and face any consequences that may come their way. John Stuart Mill - an influencal figure in Liberatarianism – believe we are free and morally responsible for all our actions. Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society.
Success of Aquinas’s Cosmological Argument Thomas Aquinas’s cosmological argument is a posteriori argument that Aquinas uses to prove the existence of God. Aquinas argues that, “Nothing can move itself, so whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this causal loop cannot go on to infinity, so if every object in motion had a mover, there must be a first mover which is the unmoved mover, called God.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3). I do agree with Aquinas’s cosmological argument in proving the existence of God with several reasons. According to the cosmological argument, first of all, Aquinas claims that, “it is impossible that a thing should be both mover and moved, namely it should not move itself.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3) This part of the argument is obviously correct.
Analyse the essential ideas in the Ontological Argument The Ontological (meaning ‘concerned with being’) argument is the only a priori argument for the existence of God. This means that it does not rely on the evidence of our senses for its premises or conclusion. It works by logical stages, which is self evidently true or logically necessary. This is one of its major strengths. It is also deductive, so the conclusion is the only possible one that could be deduced give the premises.
Existentialism and Gestalt Theory The principles of existential therapy are based on the theories of 19th and 20th century philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Existential therapy supports the idea that we are all directly responsible for our own lives over the idea of meaningful existence and predetermined destiny. Many other philosophers, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel and Ludwig Binswanger, also contributed to these ideas. Existential therapy is aimed at making sense of human existence and is generally not concerned with the client's past, but emphasizes the choices to be made in the present and future. The focus is on the nature of the human condition, which includes a capacity for self-awareness,
This essay will first look at two different influential theories of social scientists Goffman (1959, 1971, 1972) and Foucault (1972, 1977, 1978) on how social order is made. This will enable us to then link these theories to the approaches of Buchanan and Monderman to provide better understanding on how each design creates order, highlighting contrasts and similarities along the way. Goffman developed the idea that social life is constructed by the everyday encounters and actions that take place between people. Repetitive interactions produce
To check if a maxim (meaning the intention of your action, or your principle of action) can be a Categorical Imperative, a CI test was made. The procedure for this is: 1. Formulate your maxim in this form “I will do A, in circumstance C, to achieve end E. 2. Universalize your maxim: Imagine a world in which everybody acts on that maxim.
Boethius used this theory to illustrate how God is not able to relate to humans as he is not in time with them, nor one of them. This means that he can also not interact them including punishing and rewarding humans. Boethius explains that if God were to interact, punishing and rewarding, it would mean he would be experiencing time as one and so undermining Boethius’ theory of god being eternal. This idea is more consistent with the idea that God is immutable and is not contingent. On the other hand, Boethius also states that humans do not have free will.
Durkheim’s Division of Labor Of the major theorists, Durkheim has the most straight forward theory and what people could consider “common sense.” His notion of function was how things interrelate to each other and the consequences of those relationships. When we think of functions in society, everything and anything connects and interrelates, according to Durkheim. He believes that society is its own reality, independent of the individuals who make it up. Also, the truths a society shares have an existence independent of individual manifestations and that are capable of exerting external constraints on individuals. Durkheim pin points major points throughout this book such as “the Division of Labor,” changes in society, mechanical and organic solidarity, and the abnormal and normal norms in which our modern society is constructed around.
Korsgaard argues that one cannot constitute oneself as the subject of a coherent, meaningful life unless one can act on a rational, non-arbitrary basis. Korsgaard says: “Our practical identities are, for the most part, contingent.” (p. 23) We construct ourselves from our choices, our actions, from the reasons that we legislate. We are all divided into parts and we must look to our reasons before we make a choice on which action we should perform. These reasons come from principles. These principles cannot be those that have been dictated to us by others, such as those principles of Unitarianism: “The principle of unity, if it were a principle of reason, would be a substantive principle, not a formal one, based on the unsupported thesis that maximal happiness just is the good.” (p. 57) Korsgaard argues against actions that are dictated by a theory that encourages us to substantiate our personal identity by choosing those actions that bring about the best result (or the least amount of bad results) for the