Thursday, June 18, 2009

What seems best...

Epictetus doesn't spend much time clarifying how we will know our ethical obligation when we see it.

As a potential counter to the friend-in-danger-indifference problem raised in a previous post, Epictetus offers "Abide by what seems best as if it were an inviolable law."

As a guide for knowing what "is best" this is pretty shaky.

Perhaps Epictetus believes that the gods reveal to us what we should do, in the form of the feeling "seems best", so we can trust that feeling. That requires great faith, beyond logic.

Barring divine intervention however, much of what we currently believe about people's inability to predict future states draws this confidence into question.

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