I'm afraid I've only studied Aquinas for his influence on political thought, not pure philosophy or ethics, and I know nothing about Kant. So your post was fascinating but using unfamiliar concepts for me...
And my usual first port-of-call in such cases - Wikipedia's pages on Thomism and Kant - were worse than useless because instead of giving a nice, clear layman's summary of their theories they launchesd into the most abstruse and long-winded details imaginable, using terminology and concepts that only a philosophy graduate could understand. It was much the same when I tried to get my head round Existentialism after Joss wrote 'The Chain'.
But anyway...
That's a move up the ladder of love that lots of people with souls fail to make
I think my problem here is that your argument depends on the soul not really mattering. That it helps Spike to be good, by letting him get his priorities straight, but it's not essential. Now, in real life, I think that's a perfectly good philosophy and if it weren't for the fact that I don't believe in the soul I'd agree with you 100%. :-)
But in the Buffyverse, souls have an objective reality - we actually see Angel's disembodied soul on screen a few times - and I simply think it would be bad storytelling if it had no significant effect on the owner after all. My preferred reading of Spike's soulquest in S6 and his self-sacrifice in S7 are that they were a triumphant and heroic part of his character arc, not an ironic irrelevance...
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Date: 2009-01-27 08:36 pm (UTC)I'm afraid I've only studied Aquinas for his influence on political thought, not pure philosophy or ethics, and I know nothing about Kant. So your post was fascinating but using unfamiliar concepts for me...
And my usual first port-of-call in such cases - Wikipedia's pages on Thomism and Kant - were worse than useless because instead of giving a nice, clear layman's summary of their theories they launchesd into the most abstruse and long-winded details imaginable, using terminology and concepts that only a philosophy graduate could understand. It was much the same when I tried to get my head round Existentialism after Joss wrote 'The Chain'.
But anyway...
That's a move up the ladder of love that lots of people with souls fail to make
I think my problem here is that your argument depends on the soul not really mattering. That it helps Spike to be good, by letting him get his priorities straight, but it's not essential. Now, in real life, I think that's a perfectly good philosophy and if it weren't for the fact that I don't believe in the soul I'd agree with you 100%. :-)
But in the Buffyverse, souls have an objective reality - we actually see Angel's disembodied soul on screen a few times - and I simply think it would be bad storytelling if it had no significant effect on the owner after all. My preferred reading of Spike's soulquest in S6 and his self-sacrifice in S7 are that they were a triumphant and heroic part of his character arc, not an ironic irrelevance...