PHIL-240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Thumb, List Of Civilisations In The Culture Series, Henry David Thoreau
3 Feb 2018
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Fate-ralph waldo emerson: emerson (mckenna and pratt) took up some political causes due to pure pressure; believing in the cause, but it not being his cause. Emerson was disinterested in female suffrage: emerson focuses on self-culture: cultivating the self is ones moral project; we ought to inform our choices with the concern of moral character. One should inhabit a life they are willing to affirm; commit oneself to a community which one deems value. The primary moral question is the standing of one"s own soul; to take responsibility for the character i have created. An action done out of conformity, out of obeyance with law, has no moral worth as an action. Moral worth derives from connection between thought, sentiment and will: direction of the will towards things/causes we actually believe in. The spirit of the times: considering the conduct of life, recover meaning in choices (rather than feeling powerless and subject only to fate/determinism).
