By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
What is our human prerogative?
According to Hartshorne, our human prerogative is "conscious participation in the creative process" (LP: 320 f.).
This means, among other things, that we can—and should—make laws for our own actions, since on this earth human beings alone are able consciously to participate in creativity. With our "power of conscious choice," we are unlike other species in being "somewhat beyond any fixed system of living and dying." We "have to create one [sc. such a system], and to recreate it from time to time." For a human being, as Kant said, "is the one lawless being on earth unless [she or ] he makes [her or] his own laws and keeps them" (LP: 312).
Our human prerogative of conscious participation in the creative process also means that our human power of self-determination or decision, characterized as it is by consciousness of ideas and ideals, has a radical importance for both good and evil much greater than that belonging to the corresponding power of nonconscious creatures.
Overview
Content Tools