I have an idea for discussing the so-called subjective aspect of human action (feeling, perceiving, thinking, etc.) in comparison to the so-called objective aspect (human processes and structures that we can observe from the outside and measure). Historically, we have come to talk about them as if they were two different things that mysteriously interact with each other. But that is kind of like thinking of magnetism and electricity as two different processes. Just as one discovers that they are two aspects of the same reality called electromagnetism, so two, one can discover that the subjective/objective are likewise two different aspects of the same hylomorphic reality. Of course, this analogy limps if you take it too far...
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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