Benjamin Constant, On the Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns

On the Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns

By Benjamin Constant

Stephen Brock article

Dr. Brock's homepage

Read "Natural Inclination and the Intelligibility of the Good in Thomistic Natural Law"

Fulvio di Blasi's Italian website

here (not much there)

Ethics Without God: Di Blasi
Person or Digital Self? An Argument against AI Theories

Will this be translated into English?
CONOSCENZA PRATICA, TEORIA DELL'AZIONE E BENE POLITICO

Hmm... what's the quality of this journal?
SENSUS COMMUNIS : STUDI E RICERCHE DI LOGICA ALETICA

Which model of philosophy?

Sex and reproduction by Alexander Pruss

Well, there is an attempt in there to illustrate that we know powers (and their associated organs) through their objects. But some of it needs to be better developed; can some of it be characterized as "phenomenological" in its approach to the question? Or is there a more fitting adjective to describe the approach taken here?

The life of a person has a certain sacredness to it, whether we understand this sacredness as Kantian autonomy, or being in the image and likeness of God, or being an unrepeatable individual who has the power of creating his or her or its own life to some extent.

That intercourse is treated by humans in a special way even when it does not result in reproduction, and indeed even when it is not intended to do so, will be no great surprise to the student of our attitudes to the sacred. A book of the scriptures is seen as sacred because of what it teaches. But religious people show respect to a sacred book—sometimes even a sacred book from a different religious tradition—also when the book fails to teaches, say because it is in a foreign or sacred language. The place where a sacred event took place is often venerated, as are items that touched something sacred. Sacredness is seen as communicable. This kind of communicability is not limited to the religious sphere: objects previously owned by people now deceased who were important to us likewise take on a special meaning. If reproduction is sacred, it is understandable that intercourse would partake of that sacredness. And the sacred is surrounded by a multitude of beliefs, customs, mores and traditions.