display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
15 ideas
8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The good life for man is the life spent in seeking for the good life for man. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch.15) | |
A reaction: This contains a self-evident paradox - that success would be failure. The proposal suits philosophers more than it would suit the folk. Less seeking and more getting on with it seems good, if the activity is a 'flourishing' one. |
8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: We possess simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have - very largely, if not entirely - lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 1) | |
A reaction: MacIntyre's famous (or notorious) assault on modern ethics. We obviously can't prove him wrong by spouting moral talk. Are we actually more wicked than our ancestors? There is, I think, a relativism problem in the 20th centurty, but that is different. |
8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: There are good reasons for distinguishing between expressions of personal preference and evaluative expressions, as the first depend on who utters them to whom, while the second are not dependent for reason-giving force on the context of utterance. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: The sceptics will simply say that in the second type of expression the speaker tries to adopt a tone of impersonal authority, but it is merely an unjustified attempt to elevate personal preferences. "Blue just IS the best colour". |
8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Moral judgements are linguistic survivals from the practices of classical theism which have lost the context provided by these practices. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: He is sort of right. Richard Taylor is less dramatic and more plausible on this (Ideas 5065, 5066, 5077). Big claims about 'duty' have become rather hollow, but the rights and wrongs of (e.g.) mistreating children don't seem to need theism. |
2225 | If you deny all necessity and causation, then our character is not responsible for our crime [Hume] |
Full Idea: According to the principle which denies necessity, and consequently causes, a man is pure and unattainted after having committed the most horrid of crimes, since his actions are not derived from his character. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], VIII.I.76) | |
A reaction: The idea that responsibility involves actions which are 'derived from his character' strikes me as good. Once you give up free will, it is almost the only sensible way to go. |
2226 | Repentance gets rid of guilt, which shows that responsibility arose from the criminal principles in the mind [Hume] |
Full Idea: Repentance and reformation can wipe off every crime, but that is because criminal acts prove criminal principles in the mind, so alteration of these principles removes that proof, and the acts cease to be criminal. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], VIII.I.76) | |
A reaction: A bit overstated, because a heinous crime will always taint our impression of someone's character. The person may cease to be criminal, but surely not the original acts? |
8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: A central thesis of this book is that the breakdown of the project (of 1630 to 1850) of an independent rational justification of morality provided the historical background against which the predicaments of our own culture can become intelligible. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 4) | |
A reaction: Possibly the most important question of our times is whether the Enlightenment failed. MacIntyre's claim is followed by an appeal for a return to Aristotelian/Thomist virtues. Continentals seem to have responded by sliding into relativism. |
8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The introduction of the word 'intuition' by a moral philosopher is always a signal that something has gone badly wrong with an argument. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: For the alternative view, see Kripke (Idea 4948). If Kripke is right about logic, I don't see why the same view should have some force in morality. At the bottom of all morality is an intuition that life is worth the struggle. How do you prove that? |
8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: It is only when man is thought of as an individual prior to and apart from all roles that 'man' ceases to be a functional concept. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: This is the one key idea at the heart of the revival of virtue ethics in modern times. It pinpoints what may be the single biggest disaster in intellectual history - the isolation of the individual. Yet it led to freedom, rights, and lots of good things. |
22382 | We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume] |
Full Idea: Examine wilful murder and see if you can find the matter of fact called vice. You only find certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no matter of fact in the case. You can never find it till you turn your reflexion into your own breast. | |
From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], III.I.2), quoted by Philippa Foot - Hume on Moral Judgement p.77 | |
A reaction: [...In you breast you find 'disapprobation'] The question Foot asks is whether the facts of the case are relevant to the disapprobation. If they are not, as Hume implies, then it would be rational to feel the same disapprobation about drinking coffee. |
8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: In reply to the question of what kinds of approval are expressed by the feelings or attitudes of moral judgments, every version of emotivism either remains silent, or becomes viciously circular by identifying it as moral approval. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: There seems to be an underlying assumption that moral judgements are sharply separated from other judgements, of which I am not convinced. I approve of creating a beautiful mural for an old folks home free of charge, but it must be beautiful. |
8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Expression of feeling is not a function of the meaning of sentences, but of their use, as when a teacher shouts at a pupil "7 x 7 = 49!", where the expression of feeling or attitude has nothing whatsoever to do with its meaning. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: This point is what underlies the Frege-Geach problem for emotivism, and is a very telling point. Apart from in metaethics, no one has ever put forward a theory of meaning that says it is just emotion. ...Unless it concerns speakers' intentions? |
8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Analytical moral philosophers resist emotivism because moral reasoning does occur, but there can be logical linkages between various moral judgements of a kind that emotivism could not allow for ('therefore' and 'if...then' express no moral feelings). | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: This is the 'Frege-Geach Problem', nicely expressed, and is the key reason why emotivism seems unacceptable - it is a theory about language, but it just doesn't explain moral discourse sufficiently. |
8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: To a large degree people now think, talk and act as if emotivism was true, no matter what their avowed theoretical standpoint may be. Emotivism has become embodied in our culture. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: I suspect that it is moderately educated people who have swallowed emotivism, in the same way that they have swallowed relativism; it provides an excuse for neglectly the pursuit of beauty, goodness and truth, in favour of pleasure. |
8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The sophist tradition failed to distinguish the difference between the concept of a man who stands outside and is able to question the conventions of some one given social order, and the concept of a man who stands outside social life as such. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 3) | |
A reaction: A very nice distinction. Compare foreigners in Athens with Diogenes of Sinope, who renounced all cities. This is the germ of MacIntyre's view that morality is essentially dependent on some sort of social order. He is a reviver of virtue theory. |