Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Friedrich Schlegel, T Adorno / M Horkheimer and Baron de Montesquieu

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
De Sade said it was impossible to rationally argue against murder [Adorno/Horkheimer]
     Full Idea: De Sade trumpeted far and wide the impossibility of deriving from reason any fundamental argument against murder.
     From: T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944], p.118)
     A reaction: [They focus on 'Juliette'] This is a big problem for utilitarians, because murdering an unhappy person may maximise happiness. Presumably a maniac could will universal carnage, and thus thwart Kant.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
True goodness is political, and consists of love of and submission to the laws [Montesquieu]
     Full Idea: The good man is he whose goodness is not Christian, but rather political, in the sense I have given. Such a man loves the laws of his land and is moved to act by them.
     From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], Intro)
     A reaction: I take this to have a lot in common with Aristotle, whose simple slogan for virtue I take to as 'be a good citizen'.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
True love is ironic, in the contrast between finite limitations and the infinity of love [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: True irony is the irony of love. It arises from the feeling of finitude and one's own limitation, and the apparent contradiction of these feelings with the concept of infinity inherent in all true love.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.10 p.357), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism
     A reaction: [c.1827] This is more about idealist philosophy and its yearning for the Absolute than it is about the actual nature of love. Love is the door to the Absolute. The irony is our inability to pass through it.