{"id":3427,"date":"2020-01-03T04:51:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T04:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/01\/03\/when-i-recall-my-moral-failures-1\/"},"modified":"2020-01-03T04:51:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T04:51:23","slug":"when-i-recall-my-moral-failures-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/01\/03\/when-i-recall-my-moral-failures-1\/","title":{"rendered":"When I Recall My Moral Failures . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

. . . I find it hard to doubt <\/span><\/p>\n

a) My strict numerical identity over time.<\/em>  When I regret what I did, I regret what I<\/em> did, not what some other person did, and not what some earlier temporal part of me did.  The fact that the passage of time does not lessen my sense of guilt is evidence that I am strictly the same person as the one who did the regrettable deed, and also that I am not a whole of temporal parts, but a substance, an endurant in contemporary jargon, wholly present at every time at which it exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) The freedom of the will in the 'could have done otherwise' sense.<\/em>  My sense of moral failure entails a sense of moral responsibility for what I have done or left undone.  Now moral responsibility entails freedom of the will. <\/span><\/p>\n

c) The absoluteness of moral demands. <\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

There are arguments against all three points. And there are arguments that neutralize those arguments. The philosophers disagree, and it is a good bet that they always will.  So in the end you must decide which beliefs you will take as guideposts for the living of your life.  My advice is that you won't be far off if you accept the above trio and such of their consequences as you can bring yourself to accept.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first two, for example, support the immaterial and thus spiritual nature of the self. The third points us to God.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if you are wrong?  Well, you have lived well!  For example, if you treat your neighbor as if he is not just a bag of chemicals but an immortal soul with a higher origin and and an eternal destiny, then the consequences that accrue for him and you will be life-enhancing in the here and now, even if the underlying belief turns out to be false.<\/span><\/p>\n

Understand what I am saying. I am not saying that one should believe what one knows to be false because the believing of it is life-enhancing. I am saying that you are entitled to believe, and well-advised to believe, that which is life-enhancing if it is rationally acceptable or doxastically permissible.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . I find it hard to doubt  a) My strict numerical identity over time.  When I regret what I did, I regret what I did, not what some other person did, and not what some earlier temporal part of me did.  The fact that the passage of time does not lessen my sense … Continue reading “When I Recall My Moral Failures . . .”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[372,60,248,360],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belief","category-ethics","category-ethics-of-belief","category-moral-failure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}