display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
4 ideas
7222 | It is a crime for someone with a violent disposition to get drunk [Mill] |
Full Idea: The making himself drunk, in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This principle (based on knowing your own dispositions) is a very good account of the ethics drunkenness. We have a moral duty to know and remember our own dispositions. Violent people should avoid arguments as well as alcohol. |
3769 | With early training, any absurdity or evil may be given the power of conscience [Mill] |
Full Idea: There is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of early sanctions and influence, be made to act on the human mind with all the influence of conscience. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Like this! Think of all the people who have had weird upbringings, and end up feeling guilty about absurd things. Conscience just summarise upbringing and social conventions. |
3767 | Motive shows the worth of the agent, but not of the action [Mill] |
Full Idea: The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I think it is an error to try to separate these too sharply. Morality can't be purely consequential, because it would make earthquakes immoral. Actions indicate the worth of agents. |
7076 | Mill wondered if he would be happy if all his aims were realised, and answered no [Mill, by Critchley] |
Full Idea: Mill, in his crisis of 1827, asked himself whether he would be happy if all his objects in life were realised, and had to answer that he would not. | |
From: report of John Stuart Mill (Autobiography [1870]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.3 | |
A reaction: The reply is either that happiness is in the striving, or that his aims in life were wrong, or that happiness is impossible. It seems to contradict Kant's definition (Idea 1452). |