In this paper we offer a reconstruction of Anselm’s account of freedom that resolves various apparent inconsistencies. The linchpin of this account is the definition of freedom. Anselm argues that the power to preserve rectitude for its own sake requires the power to initiate an action of which the agent is the ultimate cause, but it does not always require that alternative possibilities be available to the agent. So while freedom is incompatible with coercion and external causal determination, an agent (...) can, under certain circumstances, act freely even though he cannot act otherwise than he does. (shrink)

Currently fashionable among critics of enlightenment thought is the charge that Kant's ethics fails to provide an adequate account of character and its formation in moral and political life. G. Felicitas Munzel challenges this reading of Kant's thought, claiming not only that Kant has a very rich notion of moral character, but also that it is a conception of systematic importance for his thought, linking the formal moral with the critical, aesthetic, anthropological, and biological aspects of his philosophy. The first (...) book to focus on character formation in Kant's moral philosophy, it builds on important recent work on Kant's aesthetics and anthropology, and brings these to bear on moral issues. Munzel traces Kant's multifaceted definition of character through the broad range of his writings, and then explores the structure of character, its actual exercise in the world, and its cultivation. An outstanding work of original textual analysis and interpretation, _Kant's Conception of Moral Character_ is a major contribution to Kant studies and moral philosophy in general. (shrink)

In these three dialogues, renowned for their dialectical structure and linguistic precision, Anselm sets out his classic account of the relationship between freedom and sin--its linchpin his definition of freedom of choice as the power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake. In doing so, Anselm explores the fascinating implications for God, human beings, and angels of his conclusion that freedom of choice neither is nor entails the power to sin. In addition to an Introduction, notes, and a (...) glossary, Thomas Williams brings to the translation of these important dialogues the same precision and clarity that distinguish his previous translation of Anselm's _Proslogion_ and _Monologion_, which Professor Paul Spade of Indiana University called "scrupulously faithful and accurate without being slavishly literal, yet lively and graceful to both the eye and ear. (shrink)

According to Anselm's official definition, freedom of choice is ‘the power to preserve rectitude of will for the sake of that rectitude itself.’ From the point of view of contemporary metaphysics, this is one of the most unhelpful definitions imaginable. Does such freedom require alternative possibilities, for example? Is it compatible with causal determination? Is the exercise of such freedom a necessary and sufficient condition for moral responsibility? The definition sheds no light on these questions.And so we need to move (...) on from Anselm's definition to Anselm's account of freedom. Here, though, we encounter the opposite problem. Where Anselm's definition seems not to answer these questions at all, Anselm's account seems to answer all these questions, sometimes with a yes and sometimes with a no. Consider the question about alternative possibilities. In De libertate arbitrii, Anselm seems clearly to deny that freedom involves alternative possibilities. God, the good angels, and the blessed dead cannot do otherwise than preserve rectitude, but they are still free- freer, in fact, than those who are capable of abandoning rectitude. (shrink)

In exploring this tradition of philosophical reflection on the nature of goodness, the twelve essays in this book (all but two published here for the first time) present some of the best recent historical scholarship in...