Augustine on the Election of Jacob

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 6 (1):1-30 (2018)
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Abstract

This essay aims to take up the philosophical challenge of causal determination in divine predestination to human freedom by reconstructing Augustine’s relevant insights to argue that divine predestination still can accommodate our intuitions concerning freedom and moral responsibility today. Section 1 briefly reconstructs the development of Augustine’s reflections on predestination by focusing on his interpretation of the election of Jacob. Section 2 appeals to attacks from the Idle Argument and the Manipulation Argument to present the theoretical difficulties in Augustine’s account. Section 3 argues that Augustine’s teaching of predestination contains a significant but often-neglected aspect of moral intuitions: the asymmetry of moral responsibility, namely, the conditions of being praised for a good action are substantially different from those of being blamed for an evil one. In conclusion, this essay considers some possible objections to the Augustinian asymmetry thesis to show its relevance to our moral responsibility practices today.

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Tianyue Wu
Peking University

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References found in this work

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
Compatibilism.Michael McKenna - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Augustine on free will.Eleonore Stump - 2001 - In Eleonore Stump & Norman Kretzmann (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 124--47.
Asymmetry and Rational Ability.Gary Watson - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (2):467-475.

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