Liberty is inconsistent with virtuous or vicious habits or dispositions, because to have a habitual bias is to not be indifferent. If necessity is inconsistent with praise and blame, and if some inclination is so strong, the will follows necessarily, then when the will acts, it’s not blameworthy or praiseworthy.
But every bias brings a degree of moral inability. The stronger the bias, the more difficult it is to resist it. If moral inability is inconsistent with virtue or vice, then the more evil a disposition is, the less blameworthy a person is, or the more excellent the disposition, the less praiseworthy.
The more humility, meekness, patience, mercy, gratitude, generosity, and benevolence a person has, the less praiseworthy they are. The more ungrateful, profane, treacherous, envious, cruel, and prideful a person is, the less blameworthy they are. All of these dispositions bias the will and throw it out of equilibrium, destroying indifference and moral accountability with it.
There can really be no such thing as virtue or vice in God, angels, or men, because no propensity, disposition, or habit can be virtuous or vicious. The reason they cannot be virtuous or vicious is because they destroy indifference, which is supposedly necessary for virtue and vice. If habits can be neither virtuous nor vicious, then the exercise of them can’t be virtuous or vicious either.
Part 8
No comments:
Post a Comment