Autor: Flanagan, Josef

Buch: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Titel: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Stichwort: Ethik; Freiheit; Willkür, Verfplichtung, Paradox: Freiheit als Selbst-Verpflichtung

Kurzinhalt: The paradox of freedom is that to live freely is to live in an obligatory way. But it is you who obliges yourself. Your own intelligence obliges you, as does your self-evaluating self; ...

Textausschnitt: 27/7 The paradox of freedom is that to live freely is to live in an obligatory way. But it is you who obliges yourself. Your own intelligence obliges you, as does your self-evaluating self; you command yourself to be and to behave in truly worthwhile ways. In other words, there arises a spontaneous desire to maintain a consistency between your knowing and doing. However, to oblige yourself does not mean that your actions will necessarily follow. It means that, if they do follow, it is because you did what you had decided was the right thing to do. Obligation is not necessity. To live freely is not to live in an indeterminate or arbitrary way, but to live in a self-knowing, self-evaluating, self-choosing way. A free self is a 'determined' self, but it is you who does the determining. (201; Fs)

28/7 We are born not as actual knowers and choosers, but as potential knowers and choosers who need to develop biologically, psychically, intellectually, and emotionally before we can decide for ourselves what we are to make of ourselves. We are not considered reasonable until we are about seven years old, and we are not considered responsible choosers until we have reached a certain stage of maturity. In the meantime, what we do is not knowing and deciding, but believing that the knowing and deciding of others is truly worthwhile. (201f; Fs)