The New Testament testifies the fact of divine inhabitation in the soul. This raises the question of what philosophical means may be employed in order to explicate such a theological supposition. Irenaeus and Basil the Great seem to suggest that God is present in the soul as a form in a matter. Thomas Aquinas speaks of God in-existing in us as an efficient cause of our existence and of the grace. In accordance with the modern Thomists we may understand the (...) God’s sanctifying inhabitation as an exemplar-efficient causality . This causality does not constitute any new substantial divine presence in the soul. Rather we may conclude that the “old” substantial presence of God as the cause of our existence becomes also cause of our spiritual transformation operated according the “exemplar” of God. (shrink)

According to compatibilism it is possible that an election or volition of A is truly free even if the elector cannot want – ceteris paribus – the opposite alternative. The version of compatibilism propounded in the paper is “rational” in so much as the admitted unidirectional determining factors of volition are not physical causes but rather rational reasons. We may posit this compatibilism only in case of volitions that we assess to be morally good. Particularly interesting – within the ethical (...) sphere – is the case of moral commitment, because it constitutes a kind of necessity. Such a moral necessity may imply a certain necessity of a corresponding choice. The theory of rational compatibilism allows us to unite moral necessity and human freedom. (shrink)

In response to Novák’s polemic attack I try to remove some misunderstandings and defend compatibilism about free will. My main argument goes thus: Let us take for example two agents who both decide not to kill. The first one makes his choice out of his dilemmatic mental state of incertitude and perplexity. Conversely the second person understands the sense of moral principles so clearly that she makes the right decision with necessity. Since the morality of the second person surpasses that (...) of the fi rst, my point is that the libertarian thinker puts in confl ict morality and freedom: The more a person (the latter agent) is virtuous, the less she is free (for the supposed necessity of her volition is taken to be incompatible with freedom in the libertarian theory). And – on the other hand – the less an agent (the former one) is moral, the more he is free. Indeed, he would be free while the latter unfree if it were true (as the libertarian believes) that freedom entails contingency. This is a peculiar rule of proportion. Compatibilism avoids such a peculiarity. (shrink)

The Thomistic proof of the immateriality of human reason consists in the argument from the fact that intellection has as its object not empirical particulars but abstract universals. A standard objection against dualism plays up the problem with the causal influence of the soul on the body . The Thomistic solution depends on the hylemorphic conception of the soul as substantial form of body, i.e. on the view that the human soul is that in virtue of which a human body (...) has those essential properties which it has. (shrink)

V reakci na knihu Petra Dvořáka Kauzalita činitele. Úvod do analytické diskuse o svobodě vůle hájím určitý typ kompatibilismu. Dvořák upozorňuje, že pokud bylo něčí rozhodnutí predeterminováno od něj odlišnými příčinami, pak onomu jedinci za jeho volbu nepřisuzujeme morální odpovědnost. Mým návrhem je však „asymetrické“ řešení otázky. V oblasti predeterminovaných voleb připouštím nepřítomnost odpovědnosti v případě všech morálně zlých voleb, nikoli však v případě všech voleb hodnocených jako morálně dobré. Existují totiž takové dobrovolné volby, při kterých sice nejsme s to (...) – např. na základě silných morálních důvodů – volit jinak, avšak přesto vnímáme své rozhodnutí jako svobodné. Navíc platí, že i kdybychom se při tom dověděli, či uvěřili, že daná volní nutnost není důsledkem naší minulé „libertariánské“ sebeformace, stěží by nám takové mínění zabránilo cítit se ve své volbě svobodnými. Způsoby, jakými svobodu vůle prožíváme, bychom ovšem měli jakožto filosofové respektovat. (shrink)