Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 The Logic of Omnipotence
- 2 Descartes's Discussion of His Existence in the Second Meditation
- 3 Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal Truths
- 4 Two Motivations for Rationalism: Descartes and Spinoza
- 5 Continuous Creation, Ontological Inertia, and the Discontinuity of Time
- 6 Concerning the Freedom and Limits of the Will
- 7 On the Usefulness of Final Ends
- 8 The Faintest Passion
- 9 On the Necessity of Ideals
- 10 On God's Creation
- 11 Autonomy, Necessity, and Love
- 12 An Alleged Asymmetry between Actions and Omissions
- 13 Equality and Respect
- 14 On Caring
9 - On the Necessity of Ideals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 The Logic of Omnipotence
- 2 Descartes's Discussion of His Existence in the Second Meditation
- 3 Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal Truths
- 4 Two Motivations for Rationalism: Descartes and Spinoza
- 5 Continuous Creation, Ontological Inertia, and the Discontinuity of Time
- 6 Concerning the Freedom and Limits of the Will
- 7 On the Usefulness of Final Ends
- 8 The Faintest Passion
- 9 On the Necessity of Ideals
- 10 On God's Creation
- 11 Autonomy, Necessity, and Love
- 12 An Alleged Asymmetry between Actions and Omissions
- 13 Equality and Respect
- 14 On Caring
Summary
FREEDOM, INDIVIDUALITY, AND NECESSITY
Our culture places a very high value on a certain ideal of freedom according to which a person is to have varied alternatives available in the design and conduct of his life. For a long time we have been fundamentally committed to encouraging a steady expansion of the range of options from which people can select. This commitment has been rather lavishly provided with technological, institutional, and ideological support. Moreover, it has become morally entrenched: we admire individuals and societies that promote freedom, and we deplore practices or circumstances that impair it. The more a society leaves it up to its members to determine individually the direction of their energies and the specification of their goals, and the more reasonable possibilities it offers them, the more enlightened and humane we consider it.
Our conception of ideal freedom is limited, to be sure, by considerations of legitimacy. Even those most enthusiastically devoted to freedom acknowledge that some courses of action are morally or in other ways unacceptable. As time has gone on, however, these constraints have been progressively relaxed. Corresponding to the proliferation of possibilities engendered by increasing technological and managerial sophistication, there has been a steady and notable weakening of the ethical and social constraints on legitimate choices and courses of action. Thus the expansion of freedom has affected not only what can be done but what is permissible as well.
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- Necessity, Volition, and Love , pp. 108 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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