(June 15, 2015 at 12:47 pm)Nestor Wrote:(June 15, 2015 at 9:35 am)bennyboy Wrote: It seems to me that one might view the animal instincts as obstacles to the exercise of free will, and that Buddha and the stoics had it right.Well, at this point I would probably include animal instincts as part of one's will; in keeping with the divorce initiated by Socrates, the Stoics wanted to elevate the mind and reason to the heavens while leaving the body behind on the earth, but I'm more in Lucretius' camp, that the two aren't really separable. It may be true that our reasons conflict with our passions, but so often do our reasons seem to war against our reasons (the angel vs. the devil), and our instincts are left in turmoil as like a pendulum they swing this way then that.
What say you? Are the baser or animal instincts the purest expression of will, or its most immediate impediments? Should one be free of emotion completely in order to most fully exercise free will?
Interesting. It seems to me that your view of "will" is not different than my definition of "self," in the sense that the will is the behavioral expression of the self.
I see my short-range desires, when they come into conflict with my long-range desires or goals, as an impediment to the free expression of the self rather than a part of it. But I see this as an arbitrary perspective-- I wouldn't want to go about trying to logically support it.
