- This pseudo-Paper is intended as the mechanism to record time spent on the Note 'Wantons1' during my Thesis research, as from 2011.
- For the actual time recorded, click on "Paper Summary" above.
Write-up2 (as at 12/05/2018 21:00:00): Wantons
Plug Note3- “Wanton” is a term of art introduced in "Frankfurt (Harry) - Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person".
- Wantons are human beings4 who aren’t moral persons, because they lack second order desires (they don’t want to want to do x or be morally like y).
- Most human beings (the persons5) care what their moral likes and dislikes are, and want to reform or improve their moral sensibilities and characters. They care about their moral state. Wantons don’t; they are happy as they are (and not because they are moral saints).
- While the term “wanton” is a useful one, I think excluding wantons from falling under the concept6 “person” is making that concept too narrow. Frankfurt may have hijacked the term wanton, but he has left no important semantic gap in so doing (he has probably done no more than perform a service by clarifying the term).
- However, in restricting the term “person” to non-wantons, he is (I would claim) invoking a semantic shift that would then require a new term, PERSON-Minus, to cover those wanton human beings who enjoy the non-moral properties that Frankfurt-persons enjoy. Maybe they would be persons of reduced degree7?
- For a page of Links8 to this Note, Click here. This revealed precious little in my database, and what little there was, was mostly irrelevant, and has been suppressed.
- Works on this topic that I’ve actually read9, include10 the following:-
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Do Persons Begin and End?", Baker11
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Conditions of Personhood", Dennett
- "Frankfurt (Harry) - Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person", Frankfurt
- "Snowdon (Paul) - The Self and Personal Identity", Snowdon
- A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
- "Velleman (David) - The Way of the Wanton", Velleman
- This is mostly a place-holder12.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2: - This is the write-up as it was when this Abstract was last output, with text as at the timestamp indicated (12/05/2018 21:00:00).
- Link to Latest Write-Up Note.
Footnote 3: - A number of my philosophical Notes are “promissory notes” currently only listing the books and papers (if any) I possess on the topic concerned.
- I’ve decided to add some text – whether by way of motivation, or something more substantive – for all these identified topics related to my Thesis.
- As I want to do this fairly quickly, the text may be confused or show surprising ignorance.
- The reader (if such exists) will have to bear with me, and display the principle of charity while this footnote exists.
Footnote 8: - If only a “non-updating” run has been made, the links are only one-way – ie. from the page of links to the objects that reference this Note by mentioning the appropriate key-word(s). The links are also only indicative, as they haven’t yet been confirmed as relevant.
- Once an updating run has been made, links are both ways, and links from this Notes page (from the “Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note” and “Summary of Note Links to this Page” sections) are to the “point of link” within the page rather than to the page generically. Links from the “links page” remain generic.
- There are two sorts of updating runs – for Notes and other Objects. The reason for this is that Notes are archived, and too many archived versions would be created if this process were repeatedly run.
Footnote 9: - Frequently I’ll have made copious marginal annotations, and sometimes have written up a review-note.
- In the former case, I intend to transfer the annotations into electronic form as soon as I can find the time.
- In the latter case, I will have remarked on the fact against the citation, and will integrate the comments into this Note in due course.
- My intention is to incorporate into these Notes comments on material I’ve already read rather than engage with unread material at this stage.
Footnote 10: - I may have read others in between updates of this Note – in which case they will be marked as such in the “References and Reading List” below.
- Papers or Books partially read have a rough %age based on the time spent versus the time expected.
Footnote 11: - Baker doesn’t actually mention wantons, but might have!
- The same goes for the paper by Snowdon.
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2018