Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and the Desire to Be a God (eBook)

Bruce N. Waller (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2020
186 Seiten
Bloomsbury Publishing (USA) (Verlag)
978-1-9787-9206-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and the Desire to be a God explores the hidden corridors of the moral responsibility system to discover why that system is so widely accepted and passionately defended. The moral responsibility system has obvious charms: it provides justification for our powerful strike-back motives, transforms selfishness into the virtuous defense of our justly deserved special benefits, draws a radical distinction between humans and the other species we exploit, and protects our nonconscious belief in a just world. Those charms notwithstanding, the resilience and endurance of the moral responsibility system indicates a hidden force that not only binds together the pieces of the system but also motivates our stubborn devotion to that system. That hidden force is a nonconscious desire to be a god: a desire that afflicts both believers and atheists, and that is almost universally denied (Nietzsche being a special exception). That desire can be found throughout the history of philosophy, from Aristotle to the present. It is also manifested in myths and a variety of religious practices and teachings. The breadth, power and harm of nonconscious "e;apotheosis aspiration"e; is the focus of this study.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.9.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
• ISBN-10: 1-9787-9206-9 / 1978792069
• ISBN-13: 978-1-9787-9206-7 / 9781978792067