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Description
"The programme concentrates on three philosophers - Hume, Kant and Sartre. Hume had said that "reason is the slave of the passions". Against this Kant maintained that a man acting fr...om a purely moral motive would rise above his desires and hence be "free". This was because the Moral Law was a product of a man's own faculty of reason. Sartre agrees with Kant in acknowledging the potential supremacy of reason over the "passions" or desires, but he regards obedience to the Moral Law as being no less a negation of freedom. The characters in his novels are tormented and paralysed by the search for reasons for acting which would make the action truly free - i.e. neither determined by one's desires nor dictated by a moral law."
"The programme concentrates on three philosophers - Hume, Kant and Sartre. Hume had said that "reason is the slave of the passions". Against this Kant maintained that a man acting fr...om a purely moral motive would rise above his desires and hence be "free". This was because the Moral Law was a product of a man's own faculty of reason. Sartre agrees with Kant in acknowledging the potential supremacy of reason over the "passions" or desires, but he regards obedience to the Moral Law as being no less a negation of freedom. The characters in his novels are tormented and paralysed by the search for reasons for acting which would make the action truly free - i.e. neither determined by one's desires nor dictated by a moral law."
| Module code and title: | A202, The age of revolutions |
|---|---|
| Item code: | A202; 18 |
| Recording date: | 1971-04-04 |
| First transmission date: | 22-05-1972 |
| Published: | 1972 |
| Rights Statement: | Rights owned or controlled by The Open University |
| Restrictions on use: | This material can be used in accordance with The Open University conditions of use. A link to the conditions can be found at the bottom of all OUDA web pages. |
| Duration: | 00:18:13 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Patricia Hodgson |
| Contributors: | Oswald Hanfling; David King; Denis McCarthy |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Philosophy |
| Master spool number: | TLN15FM173F |
| Production number: | TLN15FM173F |
| Available to public: | no |
