Philosophy : its scope and relations an introductory course of lectures / by Henry Sidgwick.

  • Henry Sidgwick
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Philosophy : its scope and relations an introductory course of lectures / by Henry Sidgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    God’s purpose cannot be carried out without the creation of beings such as men endowed with Free Will : and that thus the endowment of Free Will renders the admission of wrong - doing inevitable. And so we are brought to the question of Free Will, which in the view of some is fundamentally important, not only in dealing with the relation of Practical to Theoretical Philosophy, but also in constructing Practi- cal Philosophy itself.^ My view of Free Will is nearly similar to Kant’s—with the very important difference that he thinks that the antinomy or dilemma which we both recognise can be properly explained by taking the critical view of knowledge, whereas I hold that no satisfactory explanation has been found of it. I think the presumptive argument for regard- ing any particular human mind as an effect completely determined by pre-existing mundane causes is very strong, confirmed as it is by even the very im- perfect success that we actually have in reducing its volitions to laws and foreseeing the particular volitions that will occur under particular circumstances. On the other hand, when I take the ethical view of action, I find it impossible to regard the volition, when wrong or imperfect, as completely determined in the moment of deliberate action by the causes to which, contemplating it after the event, I should refer to explain its wrongness or imperfection. To put it otherwise : I cannot regard absence of adequate 1 I think its importance from the latter point of view has been exaggerated. Of. Methods of Ethics, bk. I. eh. v. [where the subject of Free Will is more fully discussed].
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