“)For whatever reason, I’ve been doing a bit more reflection than usual. Piling several of those reflections into a single, long post didn’t feel right, so this likely will be followed by other stand-alone posts, each with my fingerprints all over it:
Our human moral agency is not so strong that it can overcome every conceivable shock and influence thrown at us. Sometimes, human character turns bad owing to things beyond our control. “Moral luck” is thus a way to raise the question of whether we truly possess a meaningful freedom and true moral self-determination. If the right temptation could bring any of us down, in what sense is one person truly “good” and another “bad”?
Timothy Patitsas, The Ethics of Beauty. The first time I read this, it really resonated with me.
Is a man virtuous who avoids adultery only by being so homely and mediocre that beautiful women don’t come on to him? Is he more virtuous than the handsome, powerful adulterer he accuses satyriasis?
Or again:
“Lucy,” said the trader, “your child’s gone; you may as well know it first as last. You see, I know’d you couldn’t take him down south; and I got a chance to sell him to a first-rate family, that’ll raise him better than you can.” The trader had arrived at that stage of Christian and political perfection which has been recommended by some preachers and politicians of the north, lately, in which he had completely overcome every humane weakness and prejudice. His heart was exactly where yours, sir, and mine could be brought, with proper effort and cultivation.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
“Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother.”
I don’t do any of the major social media, but I have two sub-domains of the domain you’re currently reading: (a) You can read most of my reflexive stuff, especially political here. (b) I also post some things on my favorite no-algorithm social medium.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 