GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

*44
ETHICS
ing imply that "there is a formula which adequately
describe* my own personal moral character, and that
knowledge of this formula would make it possible to calculate
the line of action I shall take in a difficult situation,
exactly as the astronomer calculates an eclipse or a transit
of Venus". The feet that successful calculation of'conduct
is rarely possible in practice only, on this view, illustrates
the complexity of the elements which make up character.
It does not mean that character and the conduct which
springs from it are not in- theory calculable and, ifcalculable,
therefore determined.
Summary of Implications of Sclf-Dcte
I have put this view, the view that we are determined by
our own pasts, in the most cogent form in which it is
capable of bong stated. This is the form which insists that
both when we choose and when we act the motivating
faculty is non-rational, and this view, I am suggesting,
almost inevitably entails some kind of Self-determinism.
It is, however, also possible to state the sclf-determinist
view in such a way, that, while admitting that it may be
reason which chooses, while conceding that reason can
even motivate to action, it still implies that in so
choosing and motivating reason is not free. This form of
the self-determinist view may be stated as follows: freedom
of die will does not, it is clear, mean mere motiveless
caprice; there must be some reason why we choose as
we do, even ifour choices are free. Now if it is in feet reason
which chooses, reason must choose with a motive. Let us
suppose that there are various alternative motives between
which reason deliberates, that it ultimately selects one
of them, and that the agent acts in accordance with the
choice made. Why does it choose this one? Because it
appears to it to be the weightiest motive in the field. Why
does it so appear? Because the reasoq is so constituted that
it cannot help but so regard it Why is the reason so constituted?
Because of die past history of the penon reason-
ing and of his initial cast of mind. Once this answer is