The acceptance of full responsibility for one’s own choices and actions (and
their consequences) is such a demanding moral discipline that many men seek to
escape it by surrendering to what they believe is the easy, automatic,
unthinking safety of a morality of “duty.” They learn better, often when it is
too late.
The disciple of causation faces life without inexplicable chains, unchosen
burdens, impossible demands or supernatural threats. His metaphysical attitude
and guiding moral principle can best be summed up by an old Spanish proverb:
“God said: ‘Take what you want and pay for it.’” But to know one’s own desires,
their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.