Great Throughts Treasury

"A significant life is, in some sense, permanent; it makes a permanent difference to the world – it leaves traces."

"For a life to have meaning it must connect with other things or values beyond itself… To see something’s limits is to question its meaning."

"To seek to give life meaning is to seek to transcend the limits of one’s individual life."

"A person having lesser opportunities would be better off if some particular person having better opportunities didn?t exist. The person having better opportunities can be viewed not merely as someone better off, or as someone not choosing to aid, but as someone blocking or impeding the person having lesser opportunities from becoming better off. Impeding another by being a more alluring alternative partner in exchange is not to be compared to directly worsening the situation of another, as by stealing from him. But still, cannot the person with lesser opportunity justifiably complain at being so impeded by another who does not deserve his better opportunity to satisfy certain conditions? (Let us ignore any similar complaints another might make about him [or if this zero-sum actually exists in economics] )"

"After the choice, however, others will say we were caused to act by the considerations which were (or turned out to be) more weighty. And it is not just others. We too, in looking back at our past actions, will see which reasons swayed us and will view (accepting) those considerations as having caused us to act as we did. Had we done the other act, though, acting on the opposing considerations, we (along with the others) would have described those considerations as causing us to do that other act. Whichever act we do, the (different) background considerations exist which can be raised to causal status. Which considerations will be so raised depends upon which act we do. Does the act merely show which of the considerations was the weightier cause, or does the decision make one of them weightier?"

"1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding. 2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding. 3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2."

"A distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means."

"And to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

"But if emigration from the country were allowed, anyone could choose to move to another country that did not have compulsory social provision but otherwise was (as much as possible) identical. In such a case, the person's only motive for leaving would be to avoid participating in the compulsory scheme of social provision. And if he does leave, the needy in his country will receive no (compelled) help from him."

"Certainly the emphasis I place in this chapter on coordination of behavior and cooperation to mutual benefit is something that ought to be very congenial to people in the libertarian tradition."

"Clearly, if our actions were random, like the time of radioactive decay of uranium 238 emitting an alpha particle, their being thus undetermined would be insufficient to ground human value or provide a basis for responsibility and punishment. Even the denier of determinism therefore needs to produce a positive account of free action. On his view, a free action is an undetermined one with something more. The problem is to produce a coherent account of that something more. Once that account is formulated, we might find it does all the work, and that it is compatible with determinism and sufficient for our value purposes; in that case, the something more would become the whole of the account of free will."

"And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth."

"Evolutionary cosmology formulates theories in which a universe is capable of giving rise to and generating future universes out of itself, within black holes or whatever."

"Examples one finds in the philosophical literature are somebody who's seen the trial of a child of theirs, where they're being proved guilty of some crime that would drive the parent into a depression, maybe a suicidal depression."

"Despite the fact that it is only coercive routes towards these goals that are excluded, while voluntary ones remain, many persons will reject our conclusions instantly, knowing they don?t want to believe anything so callous towards the needs and suffering of others. I know the reaction; it was mine when I first began to consider such views. With reluctance I found myself becoming to be convinced of Libertarian views, due to various considerations and arguments."

"First, however, we shall try to delineate an indeterminist view of free will. If some such view could be made to work, we would welcome it most. Seeing its difficulties might prepare us to view what the second part lays out, although causally determined and hence "second best", still as desirable and a form of free will nonetheless, the best instantiated realization of it. On the other hand, if the parts of this chapter came in a different order so that we first saw the inadequacies of the determinist picture, this might induce more tolerance of the indeterminist account, difficulties and all. Parts I and II of this chapter, it is only fair to warn the reader, contain more thrashing about than any other chapter of this book. Over the years I have spent more time thinking about the problem of free will?it felt like banging my head against it?than about any other philosophical topic except perhaps the foundations of ethics. Fresh ideas would come frequently, soon afterwards to curdle. (This is especially evident in Part II.) The presentation of many of these ideas and approaches may spur the reader to a success that has eluded me, or at least lift her spirits temporarily on this most frustrating and unyielding of problems. We approach the issue of free will from many directions. If we cannot solve the problem, at least we can surround it."

"From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen."

"Even the reader unconvinced by my arguments should find that, in the process of maintaining and supporting his view, he has clarified and deepened it. Moreover, I like to think, intellectual honesty demands that, occasionally at least, we go out of our way confront strong arguments opposed to our views. How else are we to protect ourselves from continuing in error? It seems only fair to remind the reader that intellectual honesty has its dangers; arguments read perhaps at first in curious fascination may come to convince and even to seem natural and intuitive. Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth."

"I guess my tendency is to think essentially that the new wrinkles won't do the job if the old major idea didn't, and so you have to try something different. Then maybe they can all be combined in some coherent piece."

"If D1 was a just distribution, and people voluntarily moved from it to D2, transferring parts of their shares they were given under D1 (what was it for if not to do something with?), isn't D2 also just? If the people were entitled to dispose of the resources to which they were entitled (under D1), didn't this include their being entitled to give it to, or exchange it with, Wilt Chamberlain? Can anyone else complain on grounds of justice? Each other person already has his legitimate share under D1. Under D1, there is nothing that anyone has that anyone else has a claim of justice against. After someone transfers something to Wilt Chamberlain, third parties still have their legitimate shares; their shares are not changed. By what process could such a transfer among two persons give rise to a legitimate claim of distributive justice on a portion of what was transferred, by a third party who had no claim of justice on any holding of the others before the transfer?"

"I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way."

"I see the situation as follows. There are various philosophical views, mutually incompatible, which cannot be dismissed or simply rejected. Philosophy's output is the basketful of these admissible views, all together. One delimiting strategy would be to modify and shave these views, capturing what is true in each, to make them compatible parts of one new view. This book puts forward its explanations in a very tentative spirit; not only do I not ask you to believe that they are correct, I do not think it important for me to believe them correct, either. Still I do believe, and hope you will find it so, that these proposed explanations are illuminating and worth considering, that they are worth surpassing; also that the process of seeking and elaborating explanations, being open to new possibilities, the new wonderings and wanderings, the free explanation, is itself a delight."

"How is free will possible? Given the tension between causal determination and randomness on the one hand, and valuable agent-hood on the other, how is valuable agenthood possible? The problem is so intractable, so resistant to illuminating solution, that we shall have to approach it from several different directions. No one of the approaches turns out to be fully satisfactory, nor indeed do all together."

"In what way does the situation of a doctor differ? Why should he bear the costs of the desired "needs" allocation, why is he less entitled to pursue his own goals than everyone else?"

"If the woman who later became my wife rejected another suitor (whom she otherwise would have married) for me, partially because (I leave aside my loveable nature) of my keen intelligence and good looks, neither of which did I earn, would the rejected less intelligent and less handsome suitor have a legitimate complaint about unfairness?)"

"Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?"

"In a free system any large, popular, revolutionary movement should be able to bring about its ends by such a voluntary process. As more and more people see how it works more and more will wish to participate in or support it. And so it will grow, without being necessary to force everyone or a majority or anyone into the pattern."

"It is neither necessary nor appropriate, on this view, to say the person's action is uncaused. As the person is deciding, mulling over reasons RA which are reasons for doing act A and over RB which are reasons for doing act B, it is undetermined which act he will do. In that very situation, he could do A and he could do B. He decides, let us suppose, to do act A. It then will be true that he was caused to do act A by (accepting) RA. However, had he decided to do act B, it then would have been RB that caused him to do B. Whichever he decides upon, A or B, there will be a cause of his doing it, namely RA or RB . His action is not (causally) determined, for in that very situation he could have decided differently; if the history of the world had been replayed up until that point, it could have continued with a different action. With regard to his action the person has what has been termed contra-causal freedom?we might better term it contra-deterministic."

"It is, from another angle, an attack on requiring proof in philosophy. And it's also the case, I guess, that my temperament is to like interesting, new, bold ideas, and to try and generate them."

"It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed;"

"It may be that correctness in ethics is not found in what we naturally think."

"If nothing of moral significance could flow from what was arbitrary (e.g. natural assets) then no particular person's existence could be of moral significance, since which of the many sperm cells succeeds in fertilizing the egg cell is arbitrary from a moral point of view. We should be apprehensive about any principle that would condemn morally the very sort of process that brought us to be, a principle that therefore would undercut the legitimacy of our very existing."

"Individuals in Locke?s state of nature are in ?a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or dependency upon the will of any other."

"Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good, would choose that group of people that constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?"

"Is this conception of decision as bestowing weights coherent? It may help to compare it to the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics. The purpose of this comparison is not to derive free will from quantum mechanics or to use physical theory to prove free will exists, or even to say that non-determinism at the quantum level leaves room for free will. Rather, we wish to see whether quantum theory provides an analogue, whether it presents structural possibilities which if instanced at the macro-level of action ? this is not implied by micro-quantum theory ? would fit the situation we have described. According to the currently orthodox quantum mechanical theory of measurement, as specified by John von Neumann, a quantum mechanical system is in a superposition of states, a probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with the quantum mechanical equations of motion, and which changes discontinuously via a measurement or observation. Such a measurement "collapses the wave packet", reducing the superposition to a particular state; which state the superposition will reduce to is not predictable." Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights; he is in a superposition of (precise) weights, perhaps within certain limits, or a mixed state (which need not be a superposition with fixed probabilities). The process of decision reduces the superposition to one state (or to a set of states corresponding to a comparative ranking of reasons), but it is not predictable or determined to which state of the weights the decision (analogous to a measurement) will reduce the superposition."

"Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision?"

"It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest."

"Justice in holdings is historical; it depends upon what actually has happened. We shall return to this point later."

"No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified."

"Once a person exists, not everything compatible with his overall existence being a net plus can be done, even by those who created him. An existing person has claims, even against those whose purpose in creating him was to violate those claims."

"May a person emigrate from a state that has institutionalized some wealth redistribution system? Consider a nation having a compulsory scheme of minimal social provision to aid the neediest. No one may opt out of participating in it. None may say, "Don?t compel me to contribute to others and don't provide for me via this compulsory mechanism if I am in need." Everyone above a certain level is forced to contribute to aid the needy."

"It's the level that allows us each to live our own chosen lives. But I notice not everyone agrees with the primary importance of that level, and I try to account for how they don't."

"One line of approach motivated the previous chapter's investigation of knowledge. Couldn't action be connected to something exactly as belief is to the truth when it constitutes knowledge? We want our beliefs to track facts, and the desirability of this is not undercut (but indeed may be aided) by our belief's being caused in a certain way. Wouldn't it be similarly desirable if our actions also were connected to something, tracking it? Might not the causation of action too aid rather than undercut this tracking and so contribute to the desirable mode of action or at least be compatible with it? If this is to be plausible, what the action tracks will have to be some evaluative fact or characteristic. We shall pursue this line of thought to (see to what extent we can) defang determinism without denying it, in the second part of this chapter. In the third and last part, we shall investigate issues of punishment (despite their not being central to the free will problem); in particular, we will formulate a rationale underlying punishment in retribution for a wrong."

"One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise. Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will wither away. The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme."

"Our concern is to formulate a view of how we (sometimes) act so that if we act that way our value is not threatened, our stature is not diminished. The philosophical discussion focusing upon issues of punishment and responsibility, therefore, strikes one as askew, as concerned with a side issue, although admittedly an important one."

"Making some choices feels like this. There are various reasons for and against doing each of the alternative actions or courses of action one is considering, and it seems and feels as if one could do any one of them. In considering the reasons, mulling them over, one arrives at a view of which reasons are more important, which ones have more weight. One decides which reasons to act on; or one may decide to act on none of them but to seek instead a new alternative since none previously considered was satisfactory."

"Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth."

"Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited, to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right."

"Our point is not to endorse the orthodox account as a correct account of quantum mechanics, only to draw upon its theoretical structure to show our conception of decision is a coherent one. Decision fixes the weights of reasons; it reduces the previously obtaining mixed state or superposition. However, it does not do so at random."

"Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more."