This is why "will" needs to be defined as distinct from those other basic capacities, like desire and reason, so Augustine proposed a tripartite mind, as memory, understanding (reason), and will. — Metaphysician Undercover

The quote I gave earlier does employ the language you object to:

The will, however, commits sin when it turns away from immutable and common goods, toward its private good, either something external to itself or lower than itself. It turns to its own private good when it desires to be its own master; it turns to external goods when it busies itself with the private affairs of others or with whatever is none of its concern; it turns to goods lower than itself when it loves the pleasures of the body. Thus a man becomes proud, meddlesome, and lustful; he is caught up in another life which, when compared to the higher one, is death. — St. Augustine, book 2, 19, translated by Benjamin and Hackstaff

Your inclination to not have the same faculty at odds with itself certainly echoes a sensibility evident in the Greek philosophical tradition. The matter of sin being a choice between two possible lives is the source of the duality involved here. Otherwise, there is no choice.

Arendt is saying that if the principle of individual sovereignty was sufficient for the life of freedom, it would not lead to the absurdities noted in Rousseau's version of it.

I provided an example of the phenomenon you mentioned, not addressing the process that is involved in such a phenomenon failing against forces that would oppose it. Nor is it a topic of what is being discussed here, although interesting. — Garrett Travers

That comment evades the problem of the sufficiency of declaring individual freedom that I referred to.
That topic is integral to Arend's argument:

In reality Rousseau's theory stands refuted for the simple reason that "it is absurd for the will to bind itself for the future"; a community actually founded on this sovereign will would be built not on sand but on quicksand. All political business is, and always has been, transacted within an elaborate framework of ties and bonds for the future such as laws and constitutions, treaties and alliances all of which derive in the last instance from the faculty to promise and to keep promises in the face of the essential uncertainties of the future. A state, moreover, in which there is no communication between the citizens and where each man thinks only his own thoughts is by definition a tyranny. That the faculty of will and will-power in and by itself, unconnected with any other faculties, is an essentially nonpolitical and even anti-political capacity is perhaps nowhere else so manifest as in the absurdities to which Rousseau was driven and in the curious cheerfulness with which he accepted them.

How does that observation relate to the matter of insufficiency that was the central point of my comment?

She asks how a free community is thinkable, in which you are free with others. We think of a free community in terms of isolated individuals free from interference by others. — Tobias

In that sense, she is not opposing the idea of isolated individuals over against an idea of society or community but saying that the former is not sufficient by itself. The quote from Thomas Paine she gives is: ""to be free it is sufficient [for man] that he wills it," That may describe a necessary recognition of equality for the purpose of disavowing the claims of tyranny. It does not, however, address how to develop the means to go forward as a way of life.

The nature of this insufficiency can be approached from many different points of view. Kierkegaard said that freedom was the ability to do things. Living as an individual requires more than setting up a boundary.
The matter of capabilities and resources appears immediately when enough people associate with each other to share or not share them. Declaring all to be equal may be one way to begin but hardly is adequate for the struggles such a life must engage with.

And when the forces of tyranny do gather their capacity to cancel freedom, the strength to resist comes from those capabilities being alive and well. That work doesn't happen by simply establishing a set of rules.

The SEP says Augustine's will is basically self control. He was reacting against Manichean fatalism. — frank

The opposition to the Manichean view was to establish the culpability of the individual for evil in the world:

The will, however, commits sin when it turns away from immutable and common goods, toward its private good, either something external to itself or lower than itself. It turns to its own private good when it desires to be its own master; it turns to external goods when it busies itself with the private affairs of others or with whatever is none of its concern; it turns to goods lower than itself when it loves the pleasures of the body. Thus a man becomes proud, meddlesome, and lustful; he is caught up in another life which, when compared to the higher one, is death. — St. Augustine, book 2, 19, translated by Benjamin and Hackstaff

The idea of self-control as not being ruled by external or internal compulsion is more of a Stoic idea.
That difference is the point of Arendt saying:

Yet the Augustinian solitude of "hot contention" within the soul itself was utterly unknown, for the fight in which he had become engaged was not between reason and passion, between understanding and Thumos, that is, between two different human faculties, but it was a conflict within the will itself. And this duality within the self-same faculty had been known as the characteristic of thought, as the dialogue which I hold with myself. In other words, the two-in-one of solitude which sets the thought process into motion has the exactly opposite effect on the will: it paralyzes and locks it within itself; willing in solitude is always velle and nolle, to will and not to will at the same time.

"The rise of totalitarianism, its claim to having subordinated all spheres of life to the demands of politics and its consistent nonrecognition of civil rights, above all the rights of privacy and the right to freedom from politics, makes us doubt not only the coincidence of politics and freedom but their very compatibility." — ToothyMaw

That points to the need for a 'guaranteed public domain' for all experiences of freedom, both public and private that requires more than legal rights but also is not possible without them.

When looking at the Shoah, the loss of this domain was not simply a loss of political power, it was the subtraction from a domain for one group for the purpose of increasing the sense of freedom for another.
One might get suspicious of the language of the will when one is on the receiving end of enthusiasts who talk about matters that way amongst themselves while loading you on to trains.

I don't have a dog in any of those fights.

But I can call out what is claimed to be allegorical or not, within a certain body of text, without claiming what I believe or not.

Yes, as I said, it depends on how you define 'will'. So, since the idea has no clearly definitive, unambiguous application I agree it is fraught. — Janus

Which was, among other objectives, the point of Arendt's essay.

Depends upon what conditions they are exposed to.
And they are not all one species.

Doesn't look good on the resume.
Having a green one might.
Along with the part where you prove that you don't just twiddle your thumbs...

Augustine also justified the eternal suffering of those who gave up on their second chance of redemption. He was not speaking allegorically.
Paul was saying 'this world' was coming to an end and another would follow. It wasn't a footnote to a comment on a Greek text. It was front and center to what one was being asked to be a part of as a believer.

I suppose having a green thumb from the experience is unlikely in either event.

This doesn't address anything, it merely takes the concept of freedom and describes it as slavery. — Garrett Travers

The passage addresses freedom of the individual, as it has been expressed by Epictetus, for example, as an experience that is possible despite whatever condition or station of life one might find oneself in the world. Her intent to separate that meaning from the realm of political action is not dissimilar from your purpose in saying:

" As far as "free will," there is no such thing. There is simply limited agency or will. My body tells me I am hungry, I can choose between foods. I have homework to do tonight, I can choose which class to tackle first."

Arendt does not have to agree or disagree with your formulation to make the distinction in how the idea is expressed for different purposes.

It doesn't matter if it is political by definition, what matters is the philosophy guiding the body-politic — Garrett Travers

To speak of a just "body-politic" is to propose a "guaranteed public realm." Doubting that such a realm was given to us as a state of nature in the spirit of Rousseau is not the equivalent to saying that "humans as not having individual boundaries between one another." You are the one conflating the two ideas, Arendt distinguishes them from each other;

Maybe I'll read it to find out. — Garrett Travers

So, you just spent hundreds of words critiquing something you have not read. In the future, please indicate that is your condition before making a comment upon something.

As far as acting against your own will, that's begging the question. Your will is your will, for processes still a mystery to us. — Garrett Travers

On that point, Arendt agrees with you

This freedom which we take for granted in all political theory and which even those who praise tyranny must still take into account is the very opposite of "inner freedom," the inward space into which men may escape from external coercion and feel free.

Every attempt to derive the concept of freedom from experiences in the political realm sounds strange and startling because all our theories in these matters are dominated by the notion that freedom is an attribute of will and thought much rather than of action.

-Hannah Arendt

When properly exercised, the only logical conclusion that can be draw is that freedom between people, the recognition of sovereign boundaries between individuals, is the only manner in which to induce a society whose ruling polity doesn't violate individual, or interpersonal ethics (rights) — Garrett Travers

[/quote]

Arendt describes that quality this way while discussing ancient polities:

As regards the relation of freedom to politics, there is the additional reason that only ancient political communities were founded for the express purpose of serving the free those who were neither slaves, subject to coercion by others, nor laborers, driven and urged on by the necessities of life. If, then, we understand the political in the sense of the polis, its end or reason d'etre would be to establish and keep in existence a space where freedom as virtuosity can appear. This is the realm where freedom is a worldly reality, tangible in words which can be heard, in deeds which can be seen, and in events which are talked about, remembered, and turned into stories before they are finally incorporated
into the great storybook of human history. Whatever occurs in this space of appearances is political by definition, even when it is not a direct product of action. What remains outside it, such as
the great feats of barbarian empires, may be impressive and noteworthy, but it is not political, strictly speaking.

And so, Mr. Travers, the need for a "guaranteed public realm" is because the appearance and maintenance of "boundaries between individuals" requires more than willing it to be so:

Because of the philosophic shift from action to will-power, from freedom as a state of being
manifest in action to the liberum arbitrium, the ideal of freedom ceased to be virtuosity in the sense we mentioned before and became sovereignty, the ideal of a free will, independent from other and eventually prevailing against them. The philosophic ancestry of our current political notion of freedom is still quite manifest in eighteenth-century political writers, when, for instance, Thomas
Paine insisted that "to be free it is sufficient [for man] that he wills
it," a word which Lafayette applied to the nation-state: "Pour qu'une nation salt libre, il suffit qu'elle veuille Vetre"

In regard to libertarians who argue that they are kingdoms onto themselves, the essay points to what is missing from their view:

Without a politically guaranteed public realm, freedom lacks the worldly space to make its appearance. To be sure it may still dwell in men's hearts as desire or will or hope or yearning; but the human heart, as we all know, is a very dark place, and whatever goes on in its obscurity can hardly be called a demonstrable fact. Freedom as a demonstrable fact and politics coincide and are related to each other like two sides of the same matter.

If the 'freedom' of individuals cancels the possibility for a public realm, we are in the war Hobbes described as a state of nature. If such a cancellation is not the intention of the libertarians, what are the alternative means to preserve the public realm if it is not recognized as a necessity?

When he tried to keep me under his thumb, I gave him the finger.

You just made a distinction between people who are greedy or not by your lights.
I am reading what you are writing. You say it is okay for some to want stuff. It is less okay for others.
I am not having a problem with reading what you are saying. My reference to bad behavior was not a claim about what you meant to say. It was an observation upon the limits of what you said.

Recognizing there is a similarity is not the same as condoning bad behavior.
I don't get what identity has do with it.

However, to speed the calculus along, I'd reiterate that it is ESSENTIAL that people differentiate rational self-interest, greed predicated upon productivity and a respect for individual sovereignty, and that of actual greed, self-interest predicated upon the labor of others and a disregard for individual sovereignty. — Garrett Travers

You are working some kind of prosperity gospel where the material interests of some are legitimate, but the desires of others are not.

I want to come back as Tina Weymouth:


.

Yes, If I take your meaning, when I first read the work and learned what each of them generated together as the "Just City," it struck me as being anything but. At best, just another specimen to add to the collection of failed state models. — Garrett Travers

Regardless of the ways your judgement may turn regarding Socrates' proposal of the Just City, that regime differs from the other four by not being an experienced reality.

When Socrates speaks of the three kinds of men, lovers of wisdom, honor, or money, the regime not yet realized can be recognized as the one where the lover of wisdom is above all others in authority. The highest of the failed four can include the lover of wisdom as a righteous citizen but not as a singular agent. Consider the following discussion of the possible experiences of each kind of man:

“So consider: of the men, of whom there are three, who’s the most experienced in all the pleasures we’re speaking of? Does the lover of gain seem to you to be more experienced in the pleasure that comes from knowing, because he learns the truth itself for what it is, or does the lover of wisdom seem more experienced in the pleasure that comes from [582B] gaining something?”
“There’s a big difference,” he said. “It’s necessary for the one to taste the other pleasures starting from childhood, but for the other, the lover of gain, it’s not necessary to taste or to get any experience of learning how things are in their nature, of the pleasure in that and how sweet it is; what’s more, even if he were eager to, it wouldn’t be so easy.”
“So,” I said, “the lover of wisdom greatly surpasses the lover of gain in his experience of both sorts of pleasure.” [582C]'
“Greatly indeed.” “'
And how about in relation to the lover of honor? Is the lover of wisdom more inexperienced in the pleasure that comes from being honored than that person is in the pleasure that comes from using intelligence?”
“On the contrary,” he said; “honor is attached to them all, so long as each achieves what he sets out for. Even the rich person is honored by many people, as are the courageous and the wise. So all are experienced in what the pleasure is like that comes from being honored, but it’s impossible for anyone except the lover of wisdom to get a taste of what’s involved in the sight of what is, or of the sort of pleasure it has in it.” [582D]
“Therefore, as far as experience is concerned,” I said, “he’d do the most beautiful job of judging among the men.”
“By far.” — Republc, 582A, translated by Joe Sachs

Values, on the other hand, emerge out of societies through time and are dissemnitated onto individuals, by which their particular ethical inclinations will be informed. — Garrett Travers

This formulation is strikingly different from Rand's epistemology. She celebrates a selfishness of ranking what is worthwhile for oneself above other kinds of 'moral' evaluation. Her novels are fawning adorations of such qualities. Charity and compassion are depicted as subtractions from virtue, not simply elective values to be affirmed or not.

In keeping with the Polis and the individual being seen as parallel lives, the change from one kind of regime to another is traced by the type of man who lives in them. The role of wealth, as a personal good, plays a part in each change. The first change is described this way:

“Once division had come on the scene,” I said, “the two strains of iron and bronze in their race each pulled them in the direction of moneymaking and of acquiring land and houses and gold and silver, while the other two strains of gold and silver, inasmuch as they weren’t needy but rich in their souls by nature, led them toward virtue and the ancient order of things. — Plato, Republic, 547b, translated by Joe Sachs

But it is important to remember that the 4 regimes being discussed do not include the Fifth that the previous books of the Republic described as the best. As Glaucon says:

“That’s not hard,” he said, “because almost exactly like now, you were acting as though you’d gone completely through the discussion about the city, saying that you’d rate a city of the sort you’d gone over at that point, and a man like it, [543D] as good, though for that matter it seems as though you were able to describe a still more beautiful [544A] city and man. So anyway, you were saying that the other cities were misguided if this one is right, and you claimed, as I recall, that there were four forms among the remaining polities about which it would be worth having an account, and worth seeing the ways they, and the people like them, go astray, so that, when we’d seen them all and come to agreement about the best and worst sort of man, we could consider whether the best is the happiest and the worst the most miserable, or whether it might be otherwise. — Republic, 544a, ibid. (Underlining is mine)

.

Self-actualization then is nothing more than buying more expensive food, clothes, houses, etc. You see what I mean? — Agent Smith

In Maslow's theory of motivation, gratification of basic needs is not isolated from the cognitive activity necessary for a healthy organism. While the aesthetic element of eating can be a source of gratification, the restless nature of the organism's intellect is key for experiencing an "actualization." In that vein, Maslow observes:

Studies of psychologically healthy people indicate that they are, as a defining characteristic, attracted to the mysterious, to the unknown, to the chaotic, unorganized and unexplained. This seems to be a per se attractiveness; these areas are in themselves and of their own right interesting. The contrasting reaction to the well known is boredom.

There follows a long paragraph discussing how this characteristic has psychopathological or neurotic outcomes. And then he says:

I have seen a few cases in which it seemed clear to me that the pathology (boredom, loss of zest in life, self-dislike, general depression of the bodily functions, steady deterioration of the intellectual life of tastes, etc.) were produced in intelligent people leading stupid lives in stupid jobs. I have at least one case in which the appropriate cognitive therapy (resuming part time studies, getting a position that was more intellectually demanding, insight) removed the symptoms. — A Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation, pg 49

This example suggests that satisfying 'higher' needs becomes more personal and various in their expressions but the dynamic of what makes them healthy or sick is the same for all humans.

It is difficult to sort out these various models. How they get used to promote different policies makes them a player in a way that does not answer the problem of experience they are supposed to make more understandable.

For example, Maslow is a 'behaviorist' in wanting to base a model of personal development by observing behavior. That is different from relying upon reports of experience to investigate the phenomena. Vygostky is important because he discussed the limits of 'self-reporting' as a limit to empiricism rather than make the observation an element of his model.

In that sense, the difference between the 'psychoanalyst' method of interviewing people and finding some other way to investigate personal experience has been the difficulty since a certain set of medical doctors looked at their patients and wondered what the hell was going on with them.

I figure some thoughts take more words than others. As Horace said back in the day: "I wish to be brief, but I become obscure."

One can become prolix by exceeding what is needed or remaining obscure despite the trouble. Hard to find an algorithm to fix that.

I would prefer a 'last word' algorithm where the insistence upon only one interpretation after 20 posts automatically makes the discussion its own separate OP. The putative kings of the mountain would be excluded from the original discussion to permit alternative views to be presented without the sweaty Highlander vibe.

Good inclusion to the mater.
In opposition to the theories of motivation, there was the view of Behaviorism, of the Pavlovion sort, that focused upon producing experiences through control of conditions rather than finding the structure of an individual's desire.

They have an app for that: Industrial Psychology.

When I read Maslow, it was in the context of exploring different models of childhood development. In that dynamic, the minimum conditions for an experience was related to theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and such. The first problem was how the matter could be pursued as a movement from incapacity to assured ability. A hierarchy militates against a model of behavior without any.

So, how to look for something without presuming one has found it already.

Again, you cannot be good to others if you are not good yourself. It's not possible. — Garrett Travers

True enough. But that observation is not the same as saying that the moral values needed to be an ethical person can be derived from oneself first and then extended to others. The reference to Aristotle's comparison of man to a God was to show the problem of such a derivation, not invoke a divinity.

The value of self-sufficiency, as the highest good for the philosopher, is not the grounds for the conditions that require ethics. As Aristotle says in Politics 1253a:

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

The Randian vision is one of a God who fell to Earth.

What everyone here seems to be arguing, is that ethics are exclusively the domain of interpersonal relations. — Garrett Travers

I haven't been arguing that. The references I have made point to how the good for oneself is interwoven with the good of others. The realm of the virtue of being just is directed toward relationships with others. As your citation of the Ethics states:

[quote="Garrett Travers;648171"]the just man needs people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action."[/quote]

What you have been arguing is that moral value is measured primarily by the return of personal investment as outlined by Rand's epistemology. Aristotle just disagreed with her in this passage.

I wasn't claiming that someone other than an individual could be a virtuous person. The question is what those qualities are. They are described by Plato and Aristotle as largely exhibited through actions done with and for other people.

The Stanford essay clearly distills the gist of what is the predicate for any following ethical deliberations. — Garrett Travers

Where?

if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete." — Garrett Travers

So, who notices these virtues? What are they? Courage, Honesty, Loyalty, Fidelity, or What? Where does serving the 'individual' fit in?

The Standford essay points to how difficult it is to separate the inquiries. I was hoping for a pithy reference to actual text to illuminate your point.

I am arguing against the notion that ethics is exclusively predicated on such considerations and that individual ethics are not a thing. — Garrett Travers

Maybe a little Aristotle will demonstrate my dissatisfaction with your categories:

Now, knowing what is good for oneself is, to be sure, one kind of knowledge; but it is very different from the other kinds. A man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is regarded as a man of practical wisdom, while men whose concern is with politics are looked upon as busybodies. Euripides' words are in this vein:

"How can I be called "wise", who might have filled a common soldier's place, free from all care, sharing an equal lot?
For those who reach too high and are too active..."

For people seek their own good and think this is what they should do. This opinion has given rise to the view that it is such men who have practical wisdom. And yet, surely one's own good cannot exist without household management nor without a political system. Moreover, the problem of how to manage one's affairs properly needs clarification and remains to be examined. — Nicomachean Ethics, Book Six, translated by Marin Oswald

I don't know if "individual ethics" are a thing or not, But the concept does not seem to apply to at least one classical author. A counter example to consider would be most welcome.

You will have to show me where Plato decouples ethics and politics in the manner you propose.

The passage I cited supports the idea that people should live: "being informed both by personal reasons and interpersonal reasons." Noticing that these interests conflict in life is central to what ethical considerations must deal with by actual humans.

ethics is exclusively the domain of interpersonal relations is ahistorical and demostrably false and this passage from The Republic above has nothing to do with Platonic or Socratic ethical theory on its own, but only in relation to the proposition of the Just City. — Garrett Travers

Nothing to do with it?
Ethics has nothing to do with just polity?
I am getting an ice cream headache.

The passage does address the ethical issue of why the guardians should give up some portion of their pursuit of individual happiness for the greater good. Socrates says that they would not see it as a sacrifice if viewed as artists working with what is theirs to work upon. The happiness that comes from that devotion is a personal benefit as well as a communal one.

Two being the "Guardians," the military force within proposed Just City, for whom Glaucon, Socrates, Thrasymachus, and Polemarchus devise unique modes of living apart from normal culture, — Garrett Travers

I understand that Plato is writing of a 'City of Words', but Thrasymachus was not proposing an alternate form of life as something apart from "normal culture." His shtick was that talk of Justice is a way to sugarcoat the reality of power, where the people who win call the shots and the talk about right as a common good is a story to make people feel better about it.

The idea that gave rise to the concept of ethics came from Socrates, which was to understand how to live the "good life," as he called it. The concept that you aren't capable of developing a personal, ethical code by which to live, in the hopes of increasing utility in your own life, promoting personal health, succeeding at individual goals, finding a compatible partner, pursuing truth, and so on, is a concept entirely foreign to philosophy. — Garrett Travers

The principle of responsibilities to others was constantly set on the balance whereby the good of the individual was conditioned by the needs of the community.

“What needs to be considered, then, is whether we’re instituting the guardians with a view to that, in order for the greatest possible happiness to be brought about in them, or else, with a view toward this for the whole city, it needs to be seen whether it’s being brought about there. In the latter case, these auxiliaries and guardians would need to be compelled and persuaded to see to that, so that they’ll be the best craftsmen at their own work and all the others will be the same, and once the city is growing all together in that way and is beautifully established, one needs to leave it up to nature to allow each class of people to partake of happiness. — Plato, The Republic, 421b, translated by Joe Sachs