Divine command

Authors : John E HARE

Pages : 187-198

Doi:10.1501/Ilhfak_0000001370

View : 69 | Download : 14

Publication Date : 2012-08-01

Article Type : Other Papers

Abstract :motivation. He takes from Anselm the theory that there are two basic affections of the will, what Anselm calls the affection for advantage and the affection for justice. The affection for advantage is the drive towards the agent’s own happiness and perfection. The affection for justice is the drive towards what is good in itself, regardless of its relation to the agent. All of us have both affections, and there is nothing wrong with this. We will have both even in heaven. But the key question is the ranking of the two. The right ranking is to pursue the affection for advantage only to the extent permitted by the affection for justice. This view very probably becomes, through Luther and the Lutheran pietists such as Christian August Crusius , the origin of Immanuel Kant’s statement of what he thought was the supreme principle of morality, namely the categorical imperative. In Crusius, the formulation is that there are actions that we ought
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