Abstract: "The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it," said William James.1 It was 1900, he was approaching the height of his philosophical powers, and he was expressing his deepest personal belief and wish. For James, a moral life, great or small, meant a life of cosmic consequence, lived in a universe where neither course—personal or cosmological—is fully set. It meant a life of improving (or at least improvable) relations with the overlapping fields of experience that contain but do not quite define it. It meant a life in which the feeling of effort that does define it can be trusted as evidence of our real effect on and relevance to the universe. A life in pursuit of a legacy is therefore great for its mortal as well as its immortal fruits. The struggle itself affirms the meaningfulness of our presence in this world, and any spur it provides to the struggles of others is an extension of that most genuinely personal element of our existence, our will.KeywordsMoral LifeTerritorial IntegrityProgressive PartyCultural ProjectDemocratic CultureThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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