Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nettler, Gwynn

Titel

Cruelty, Dignity, and Determinism

Ist Teil von

• American sociological review, 1959-06, Vol.24 (3), p.375-384

Ort / Verlag

American Sociological Society

Erscheinungsjahr

1959

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Resolution of controversy about "free will" and consequent "moral responsibility" requires that questions about these subjects be phrased as propositions amenable to verification. Translation of such questions into verifiable form permits testing for the consistency of assumption used in the explanation and control of behavior and for the alleged effects of belief in these assumptions. One such test is reported of such consequences. Indeterminists have argued that the accordance of "dignity" to man requires this assumption. Where "human dignity" is defined in a fashion that does not beg the question of free will--that is, nontautologically as "resistance to revenge and the infliction of pain"--it is found that dignity is more likely to be accorded humans by determinists than by indeterminists. Therefore, other studies of the alleged consequences of the ascription of "free will" and "moral responsibility" may show these ideas to be irrelevant, if not inimical, to the achievement of commonly professed social goals.