larvatus | Entries tagged with duty

I am pleased to announce that eighteen years, seven months, and twenty-four days after the issuance of my dueling challenge to him, Mike Godwin courageously amended his original choice of arms, from Trivial Pursuit to “[my] favorite weapon”. As a result of his gracious choice, we shall battle with shinai on a near future date. Watch this space for further updates.

Updated on 11 May 2011: Regrettably, Godwin not only reneged on his assent to a duel, but attempted in vain to have me falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted, and contrived in his subsequently terminated capacity of ~~disgraced blowhard~~ general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation to have me blocked and purged from Wikipedia by lying that I made threats of violence and attempts at coercion directed at himself. There is no honor among lawyers.

It is well understood that duty cannot defer to passion. Actions that defer to passions, can at best proceed in accordance with duty. Such deference preempts the possibility of acting from duty. It is equally certain that duty cannot defer to orientation, construed as a certain regularity in passions. Nor can it defer to outlook, construed as a cohesive diachronic account of passions. For regularity and cohesion add nothing principled to the mix. But by the same token, it is far from clear that duty is independent of character, construed as a cohesive diachronic organizing principle of passions and constituent motive of actions.

Assuming these definitions, is there a coherent notion of acting from duty that makes it coextensive with acting from character?

Update: I mean to ask a basic question. Actions that proceed from passion are by definition teleological. They aim to cure a lack. This aim preempts their capacity for answering to principle regardless of anticipated outcomes. By contrast, answerability to principle is a general condition of modern deontology, as distinct e.g. from its classical theological construal in the manner of Augustine’s “Dilige, et quod vis fac.” On the other hand, by making allowances for supererogation, even the deontologist leaves room for accommodating diverse norms of character. (Here I am construing character broadly, as ἦθος rather than ἕξις.) So the duty in regard to a certain course of action may be perfect or imperfect, depending on its mandate by the agent’s character. Thus even in the absence of a conflict of duties, it is possible to accommodate individual differences of principle.

Crossposted to