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laylow
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This is one of my favorite responses to the general question of free will:
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Magnanimity
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Oh…well in that case, I agree with you! I only sometimes quibble with people (bc I think it’s really important) on what exactly we’re talking about with those “objectively immoral actions.” It’s just not helpful, I think, to forget or ignore that human wills (and their corresponding acts) are ever aimed at some good(s).
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adgloriam
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Gratuitous evil exists. To do evil because it feels good, because it is gratifying. Or because there’s no reason at all, you just feel like it, or you act on an impulse knowing full well you shouldn’t, to the extent you want not to act yet act nevertheless. That you act because you can’t help but acting. That a force superior to your reason or understanding, your will diminished, moves you to act, your will and intellect divided or influenced to willing the act. As if moved by a higher force.0Scarlett_nidiyilii:
Oh…well in that case, I agree with you! I only sometimes quibble with people (bc I think it’s really important) on what exactly we’re talking about with those “objectively immoral actions.” It’s just not helpful, I think, to forget or ignore that human wills (and their corresponding acts) are ever aimed at some good(s).
And no. That part of scholastic tradition regarding action theory has been called into question and refuted.
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Magnanimity
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This is no example of gratuity. You have described a situation in which the feeling of pleasure (at the very least) is the good sought after.
Except in a mind that is not properly functioning (imbecile, psychopath or other serious lack of cognitive functioning), you couldn’t give an example of what this would even mean. For a human to deliberately act with no reason underlying that act is, in a word, incoherent. Nonsensical.
This describes interior conflict (usually owing to conscience), and we’ve all experienced it. But, it’s no argument against all acts being aimed at some good.
This describes either habit or compulsion, but, again, is not an argument against actions being aimed at a good.
I have no idea what this means.
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adgloriam
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and the popes have stated one after the other that the devil has real existence.
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adgloriam
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I’ll leave you to find out on your own.adgloriam:
I have no idea what this means.
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Magnanimity
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Ah Hitchens of excellent memory! He was nothing if not charismatic and articulate. The new atheists bug me to no end, mostly because they don’t argue against the strongest in the tradition (e.g., St Thomas Aquinas) but also because the rest of them lack the style of Hitchens. Such rhetorical prowess and cleverness! Deeply mistaken but highly skilled.
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Magnanimity
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I do not feel I need your assistance on this subject, so thank you for leaving me to myself.
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laylow
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That’s like comparing a tennis player to Roger Federer…when putting someone up to the best, they will always come up a bit short.
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adgloriam
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You’re welcome. I do share a chuckle of “deja vu” with the others…adgloriam:
I do not feel I need your assistance on this subject, so thank you for leaving me to myself.
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adgloriam
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Muhammed Ali you sayMagnanimity:
That’s like comparing a tennis player to Roger Federer…
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laylow
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If you wish.
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awesomecatholic
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Free will does allow someone to be evil because free will allows us to reject God. Even angels have free will and that is how Satan came to be.
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Dorothy
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We are tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We make choices for good or evil every day. It doesn’t have to be mortal sin only that we avoid…when we are careless about the lesser sins we form a bad habit. When we pray and are vigilant to avoid occasions of sin we grow in the peace and love of our Lord.
There are ways that we sin by omission, by not doing a charitable act when it is easy to do so.
We can strive to be saints as the grace is available!
There are ways that we sin by omission, by not doing a charitable act when it is easy to do so.
We can strive to be saints as the grace is available!
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Annie
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I really respect St Thomas–he’s practically a patron saint of mine-- but I have to admit that this stumps me a little.
So, consider any particularly heinous crime you hear about, I won’t go into details. While there may be some “good” they are trying to attain-- I mean, the fact that what they are trying to attain is in some way good (criminal torture?) doesn’t have any bearing on the intention or the act. That “search for a good” seems to be insignificant to everything else.
ETA: the evil of the act seems to overwhelm the “goodness” of what they are trying to attain, like a tsunami.
I would also like to add that I do not think these people are irredeemable. God can work miracles, He created the entire universe!
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Magnanimity
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Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! Completely agree with you on this point. Ever since I first discovered St Thomas Aquinas in the early 2000’s during my ‘conversion’ out of Evangelicalism, my admiration for him has only ever increased over time. He has some teaching that I can’t get on board with, but I do by and large follow him.
Yes, these are troublesome, and they certainly do exist. Listening to NPR a couple of mornings ago I heard a story about widespread rape of minor girls in Sierra Leone these days. As in, it’s become a thing, an epidemic. Local medical facilities are overrun with these cases of girls coming to them for treatment after the events. Heinous crimes occur. You mention criminal torture (by the State?) which would be using a cruel means to try to obtain a good end (information to possibly save lives). When considering all such acts, there is usually not going to be a pat-answer, nothing simply resolvable into a list of “pros and cons.” I get that. And I also get that the cons can overwhelm whatever pros there might be.
But, I would also add that these heinous acts are not the norm. As in, they are not regularly occurring always and everywhere. They are, honestly, somewhat rare. That is to say, generally what we see around us and experience and even hear about is people going about their lives, just doing the best (or nearly so) that they can in the moment.
As an example, I take mass transit into work everyday. What do I see on the train? Do I see rapes, muggings, murders, violence, scare tactics? No, not hardly ever do I see anything even approaching these things. I see people reading books, sleeping, listening to their headphones, playing on their phones, engaging in conversation…just people living their lives seeking whatever goodness is accessible to them right then and there.
Now, you might say, “yeah well we have a strong ‘rule of law’ in America. We’re not in Sierra Leone right now where it would be very different.” And that’s true enough. But heinous crimes make the news specifically because of their rarity. If they were the norm–the background against which all goodness would itself be perceived as odd and rare–it would be a very different world. But, people regularly seeking out the good in their own lives and the lives of those important to them is what is commonly beheld here on Earth. That’s just life. And it’s the norm.
There seems to be just enough heinous evil (and natural evils, like tsunamis) to constantly remind us all that this world is fundamentally broken and in need of re-creation. Things are not the way they are suppose to be, and terrible evils remind us of that. But goodness is all around us too, and that is not a fact to be downplayed or ignored.
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adgloriam
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Annie
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No, I meant torture committed by criminals. Like some serial killers tortured their victims for no reason, just because they wanted to. Mengele tortured people “in the name of science,” which might be considered the good, but these guys do it just because.
Yes, thankfully they are not the norm! But nevertheless, they exist.
And the scary thing? Sometimes we find one of those people and the people around him had no idea he was like that, he seemed just like one of those people on the bus to them. For instance, the book The Stranger Beside Me," by Ann Rule, is about how a young man she worked with at a suicide prevention center seemed so “kind, solicitous, and empathetic” but turned out to be Ted Bundy.
It seems tricky.
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Magnanimity
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Ah, the psychopath. Quite right. They really do exist. I conceded this point earlier above–that there are is a minuscule percentage of humans whose minds do not properly function (i.e., have serious mental disorders), and the psychopath is certainly in this category. Normal human functioning in these respects is to be repulsed by the suffering of others and compelled to help them, when we can. The psychopath who experiences neither of those normative reactions is fundamentally broken and in need of healing. But the psychopath is a bit like the person born without limbs–he’s essentially not properly-functioning. He cannot participate in the full human gambit of experience. Although exceedingly rare, he nevertheless exists but in a way that is outside of the realm of normative human society. Broken people need to be made whole.
But for the overwhelming majority of all of us who have properly-functioning consciences, we are ever oriented toward good(s).
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adgloriam
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That’s called “superficial charm” and it doesn’t hold up for long (according to the professionals).
I was sometimes struck by the book of prophet Jeremiah and how apparently he was “the only dissenting voice”. Same went for Elias and several others. I can’t recall where exactly in scripture, but it said (approximately): “the prophets are acting out as if taken by madness”.
It seems upon Moses’s first descent from mount Sinai holding the stone tablets he was suddenly the only “not normative” – as the more perceptive of the “normatives” are more than certain to have labeled him different whilst they bowed before the golden calfs…The part that most amazes me in that story, is the “normatives” didn’t decide to turn against Moses - as apparently latter became the trend “that Israel kill its prophets”. Some are bound to not have understood Moses’s bout of rage -before or after- he broke the tablets. If it were today they would’ve brought up the strain jacket and would’ve compulsively sent him off to anger management…
But “normativity” seems to have become a thing around the time of the Gospels, someone pointed out Judas Iscariotes was the only one of the twelve apostles who wasn’t a Galilee. It seems Xenophobia had kicked in at a county level…
If it were in the 60’s (or today) I could picture a fresh college graduate -indoctrinated to thinking himself an “elite” academic- and believing himself fully qualified (“superior”, “entitled”) to evaluate that man of another culture, ethnicity, and time.
But what is even more striking, is the proliferation of sects (I always think of your homegrown Mary Baker Eddy and the “Christian Science” guys - or as they put it: “Disease doesn’t exist”). Which is one step away, just one century apart, from the Catholics today saying:“Evil doesn’t exist.”
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