J. Gregory Keller

The purpose of this study is to argue for libertarian freedom on the basis of weakness of will as a common possibility for human agents. The phenomenon of weakness of will is widely acknowledged as a human possibility. Few contemporary philosophers, however, are proponents of libertarian freedom. I argue first that the possibility of weakness of will is implied by human agency. I then describe several sets of conditions philosophers have proposed to explain the apparent freedom necessary for weakness of will and show that one proposal seems more adequate than the rest. The proposal I argue for is that the freedom needed for weakness of will is the freedom to act on a resistible desire. Acting on a resistible desire is then defined and defended. I provide two ways of looking at acting on a resistible desire and show why one of these is more promising than the other. In conclusion I show that two contemporary compatibilist approaches to describing freedom conditions fail to work in the context of weakness of will and show that the freedom condition I have proposed works better. On the basis of these results I claim that all compatibilist freedom conditions will fail in similar ways. I claim, then, that libertarian freedom is the freedom necessary for weakness of will

The Council of Europe’s 2008 White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: ‘living together as equals in dignity’ points to the need for shared values upon which intercultural dialogue might rest. In order, however, to overcome the monologic separateness that threatens community, we must educate ourselves to recognize the dialogism of our humanity and to engage in deep encounters with others with a mature skepticism of all dogmatisms, including our own. In order to aid us in reaching the necessary insight, the author calls upon Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogism of every utterance and of the unity and heteroglossia of language, Gadamer’s hermeneutical experience that shakes us loose from what we think we know, and Levinas’s description of that transcendent ideal of a dialogue beyond reciprocity. These perspectives break open our certainty that tribalism and individualism are fundamental, placing them instead as secondary phenomena that, though powerful, pronounce neither the initial nor the final word on our life together.

This paper consists of a conversation between a philosopher specialising in ethics and religion and an educational researcher with an interest in cultural studies and contemporary social theory. Dialogic in form, this paper employs an interdisciplinary response to an interdisciplinary project and offers the following components: a dialogic theorizing of the implications for education of a research project on spiritual capital; a continuation of the project of analyzing moral thinking in various cultural and societal settings; a continuation of the project of analyzing political rhetoric (towards an understanding of the polemics of political rhetoric); a reaffirmation of the value of recognizing difference and ambiguity in the global moment.

Notions of agency and of weakness of will clearly seem to be related to one another. This essay takes on a rather modest task in relation to current discussion of these topics; it seeks to establish the following claim: If A is a normal human agent, weakness of will is possible for A. The argument relies on demonstrating that certain necessary conditions for normal human agency are at least roughly equivalent to certain sufficient conditions for weakness of will. The connection between agency and weakness of will is made through the use of an extended example that lays bare the links between the two.

In her article, "Thinking and Moral Considerations," Hannah Arendt provides a provocative approach to the question of evil by suggesting that banal evil-the most common kind-may arise directly from thoughtlessness. If that is so, thinking may provide an antidote to evil. Learning to think would then offer the individual and society protection against the dangers of thoughtless evil. She further suggests that thinking may clear the way for a form of judging that "when the chips are down" may turn people toward right rather than wrong, beauty rather than ugliness. In this essay I address her claim by noting an example of apparently thoughtless evil, the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, and by showing how this event clarifies Arendt's thesis, including both its weaknesses and its strengths. The use of Macbeth will amount to a sketch of certain features of the play particularly relevant to this ethical issue, followed by an analysis of ways Arendt's thesis connects with the murder of Duncan.