Sketch here b/c late. My human desire, agency. My desire/reason/interactions as rational. Desire for knowledge as being open to reality in all its factors. A desire I share with all rational beings. Key point: discuss how we would judge and interact with a possible alternative rational life form: community/standards higher than culture/moral standards transcending dna preservation etc. would govern such interactions (and judgments). Something desired in community with them. Arg That community having a source (platonic) that is itself an agent. Leader of ultimate rational community. Somethin' like that...
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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