a behavioral cause, The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry, aphorism 143

143

The end proposed decides the beginning. In consciousness, it is the end that arrives first. We travel as inchworms. The end has set itself forward, and it is the beginning that then curls up and joins the ending. We say that a cause produces an effect and therefore “precedes” it, but we realize that the proposed effect is a behavioral cause, a stimulus that is itself an additional means by which we plant the “goal” down and then muster all necessary “means” toward it.



A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



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