53 ideas
| 2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [Idea of Varro] Just as unreliable witnesses are the bane of a murder enquiry, so bad philosophers throw a cloud of obscurity roundphilosophy. If 9999 people thought 2+2=4, but there is always one who thinks something different. |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps notions of necessary and sufficient conditions, and counterfactual considerations, are in some way grounded in awareness of ourselves as active interveners and experimenters in the world, not passive spectators. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.155) |
| 2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: I cannot think of a single philosophically interesting concept that has been successfully and nontrivially analysed to most people's satisfaction. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.121) |
| 2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Do the statements 'Sir Percy Blakeney is in Paris' and 'The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris' express different facts, or the same fact under different modes of presentation? | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.129) |
| 2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: It is one thing to see a building, and another to see it as a building, and yet another to see it as Buckingham Palace. How does the commonsense realist think that this is accomplished? | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.302) |
| 2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Dogs surely have beliefs, and beliefs call for some concepts or other. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.312) |
| 2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Empiricism is not just a theory of knowledge; it is also a theory meaning. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.149) |
| 2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Commonsense realism has to account for the subjective similarity of the genuine perception of a green surface and the experience of, say, an after-image. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.142) |
| 2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: It is estimated by Gierer (1988) that the human cerebral cortex alone contains about 300,000,000,000,000 synaptic junctions. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.46) | |
| A reaction: As we grasp the vastness of this number, and the fact that the junctions are all active, the idea that a brain does something astonishing is not quite so surprising. |
| 2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who thinks phenomenal qualities are inseparable from our awareness of them, must think subconscious mental states are totally devoid of phenomenal qualities! So how can these states cause behaviour in the way conscious states do? | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.166) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this thought, though it is beautifully unprovable. We would need to respond to a red traffic light, without having consciously registered its presence. It is is just increasingly clear that we register information pre-consciously. |
| 2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: I cannot make intuitive sense of there existing a being who possessed genuine beliefs and desires, but who, or which, lacked the capacity for consciousness altogether. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.44) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the recent move (which strikes me as correct) to see qualia and intentionality as inseparable. We might well, though, need to adopt the 'intentional stance' to a sophisticated robot. But am I aware of all of my beliefs? |
| 2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: If one asks 'what does the world look like to a fish?' the answer may be 'it doesn't look like anything; fish find their way about by blindsight.' | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.56) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a real possibility, not just a wild speculation. It seems pretty obvious to me that I operate by blindsight in many aspects of my behaviour. Piano-playing would be impossible if all qualia had to be processed. |
| 2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: I am suggesting that introspective psychology might have a contribution to make to fundamental physics. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.176) | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of introspection, as a source of genuine information. |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Halting the slide into panpsychism is the major advantage of holding that phenomenal qualities can exist unsensed. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.170) | |
| A reaction: Presumably unsensed phenomenal qualities would explain the discovery that we seem to make decisions before we are conscious of what we intend to do. That result certainly implied that consciousness had no real function. |
| 2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: If we assume that mental events are located in time, then it follows immediately, given special relativity, that they are also in space. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73) | |
| A reaction: A powerful point. Of course, there might (you never know) be something which exists in time but not space (and thoughts clearly exist in time), but (as in Hume's argument against miracles), dualism will overthrow your other basic beliefs about nature. |
| 2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Philosophical behaviourism is an absurd theory. Practically the only philosophers who ever held it, at any rate in its crude form, were certain logical positivists. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.25) | |
| A reaction: I presume Lockwood's target here is eliminativist behaviourism, as opposed to methodological behaviourism (which is a reasonable practice to adopt), and 'black box' behaviourism (which has been superseded by functionalism). |
| 2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: A favourite example of identity theorists is the identification of flashes of lightning with electrical discharges. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.71) | |
| A reaction: Personally I prefer the analogy of the mind being like a waterfall - a non-mysterious physical process which has dramatic properties of its own. If minds must keep busy in order to be minds, they must be processes. |
| 16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: The purpose of an identity statement is to get the hearer to merge these files or bodies of information into one. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Identity and Reference [1971], p.209), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 4.1 | |
| A reaction: Lockwood is a pioneer, in seeing 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' and 'Scott is the author of 'Waverley'' in terms of how the mind works. Mental files seem to me to explain a huge amount. Recanati proposes 'linking' rather than 'merging'. |
| 2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: If the logical positivists established anything it is that there is no way of demarcating science from metaphysics. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.313) | |
| A reaction: So many problems arise for philosophers because of the passion for 'demarcating' things. Close study, experiments, statistics and measurements occur in every walk of life. |
| 23590 | Criminal responsibility can be fully assigned to each member of a group [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: It is a feature of criminal responsibility that it can be distributed without being divided. We can, that is, blame more than one person for a particular act without splitting up the blame we assign. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
| A reaction: How far can this extend? To a large violent mob? To an entire nation? In court the responsibility is usually adjusted in the sentencing, rather than in the initial verdict. |
| 23578 | Double Effect needs a double intention - to achieve the good, and minimise the evil [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Double effect is defensible, I want to argue, only when the two outcomes are the product of a double intention - that 'good' be achieved, and that the foreseeable evil be reduced as far as possible. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 09) | |
| A reaction: A good proposal, I think. We have to accept evil side effects sometimes, but it is immoral to pursue some good 'whatever the cost'. |
| 23564 | Deep ethical theory is very controversial, but we have to live with higher ethical practice [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The substructure of the ethical world is a matter of deep and unending controversy, Meanwhile, however, we are living in the superstructure. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This may be the best approach to ethics. Nearly all applied ethics takes the common sense consensus on values for granted. Personally I think that is because the substructure is the obvious success and failure of human functioning. |
| 20595 | You can't distribute goods from behind a veil, because their social meaning is unclear [Walzer, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Walzer says behind the veil of ignorance there would be no way to know how a particular good should be distributed, because we would not know the social meaning of the good in question. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian' | |
| A reaction: Is Rawls actually proposing to decide details of distribution from behind the veil? There is just the maximin principle. What that means in practice would surely come once the society was under way. |
| 20592 | Complex equality restricts equalities from spilling over, like money influencing politics and law [Walzer, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Complex equality tries to keep advantages in one area (such as money) from translating into advantages in politics or before the law. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 3 'Complex' | |
| A reaction: Put like that, Walzer's complex equality becomes very interesting, and pinpoints a major problem of our age, where discrepancies of wealth have become staggeringly large at the top end. |
| 20549 | Equality is complex, with different spheres of equality where different principles apply [Walzer, by Swift] |
| Full Idea: Michael Walzer argues for 'complex equality', saying different goods belong to different distributive 'spheres', each with its own distributive principles. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 3 'Egalitarian' | |
| A reaction: Sounds interesting. Equality seems to make different demands when it concerns basic food for survival, or fine wines. You can spend your money freely, but hording in a crisis is frowned on. |
| 23568 | If whole states possess rights, there can be social relations between states [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: If states possess rights more or less as individuals do, then it is possible to imagine a society among them more or less like the individuals. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: The state's rights must derive from the people. Plots of land don't have rights. In some states the people are in conflict. It can't just be the government which represents the rights of the state. |
| 23571 | States can rightly pre-empt real and serious threats [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: States can use force in the face of threats of war, if there is a serious risk to territory or independence. They are then forced to fight, and are the victims of aggression. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 05) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He uses this to justify Israeli pre-emptive strikes against Palestinians. I don't think his confident assertion of this principle is justified. It is open to massive abuse. There are, though, clearly situations where he is right. |
| 23572 | Just wars are self-defence, or a rightful intercession in another's troubles [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Just wars may not be self-defence, if they are to help an independence struggle, or it is to save another country being invaded, or to prevent enslavement or massacre. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 06) | |
| A reaction: [summary] Modern wars support some examples of these, but also suggest that without a long-term plan, or an understanding of the country they are entering, such intercessions may worsen the situation. |
| 23581 | The aim of reprisals is to enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The purpose of reprisals is not to win the war or prevent defeat, but simply to enforce the rules [of war]. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: That may be wishful thinking, since reprisals are often vastly more ruthless than the original offence, and there is often injustice in the nature of the reprisals, since they cannot be precise. |
| 23582 | Reprisal is defensible, as an alternative to war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Reprisal is the first resort of force. It is an alternative to war, and that description is an important argument in its favour. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: Enduring wrongs with dignity might be another alternative. Successful reprisals may be acceptable, but how do you assess their prospects? |
| 23588 | With nuclear weapons we have a permanent supreme emergency (which is unstable) [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: With nuclear weapons, supreme emergency has become a permanent condition. …[283] But supreme emergency is never a stable position. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: The obvious instability of balanced mutual threat is a nuclear state which finds itself losing a war. |
| 23580 | States need not endure attacks passively, and successful reprisals are legitimate [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Whenever there is some substantial chance of success, reprisals are the legitimate resort of a victim state; for no state can be required passively to endure attacks upon its citizens. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: My concern is whether the reprisals have any direct connection to the attacks. They killed some of ours, so we will kill some of theirs is immoral. E.g. bombing Tripoli as reprisal for crashing the Lockerbie plane. |
| 23587 | Nuclear bombs are not for normal war; they undermine the 'just war', with a new morality [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Nuclear weapons are not designed for war at all. …They explode the idea of a just war. They are the first technological innovations that are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: A nuclear war can hardly lead to normal victory, if it destroys the thing you are trying to conquer. It is like bringing a machine gun to a boxing match. |
| 23567 | Even non-violent intrusive acts between states count as aggression, if they justify resistance [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Every violation of an independent state is called aggression, which fails to differentiate between a seizure or imposition, and an actual conquest. …But what they have in common is that all aggressive acts justify forceful resistance. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Walzer concedes that this makes 'aggression' rather imprecise, and small acts can be used as an excuse for desired violent resistance. Each entrant in August 1914 seems to have had a slightly different motive. |
| 23570 | The only good reason for fighting is in defence of rights [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The defence of rights is a reason for fighting. I want now to stress again, and finally, that it is the only reason. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: Walzer states at the beginning, without discussion, that his moral assumptions are based on the notion of rights. This is tricky because rights are assigned by some people to other people, and claims of rights can be challenged. |
| 23573 | For moral reasons, a just war must be a limited war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Just wars are limited wars; there are moral reasons for the statesmen and soldiers who fight them to be prudent and realistic. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 07) | |
| A reaction: This is rather profound, I think. Watch closely the behaviour of the good guys when they are winning the war. In general, to know someone's moral principles, the best indicator is how they behave when they have power. |
| 23577 | Napoleon said 'I don't care about the deaths of a million men' [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Napoleon said 'Soldiers are made to be killed. …I do not care a fig for the lives of a million men'. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: [Two separate remarks attributed to Napoleon] He apparently often said things like this this later in his career. It strikes me as despicable, and anyone who still tries to present Napoleon as admirable should be ashamed. |
| 23593 | Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello are independent; unjust wars can be fought in a just way [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Justice of war [ad bellum] and justice in war [in bello] are logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly, and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 02) | |
| A reaction: The perfect decorum of an unjust firing squad might even make the crime worse. There is something chilling about an evil army conducting itself perfectly within the ethics of warfare. Better than the other thing, though. McMahan disagrees. |
| 23574 | The duties and moral status of loyal and obedient soldiers is the same in defence and aggression [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The duties of individual soldiers …are precisely the same in wars of aggression and wars of defence. …The moral status of soldiers on both sides is very much the same; they are led to fight by their loyalty and their lawful obedience. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: He excludes war crimes. This is the thesis which Jeff McMahan objects to. It would be very odd to think that mafiosi and the legitimate police were morally equal, because the former are loyal. We should all try hard to avoid supporting unjust causes. |
| 23575 | We can't blame soldiers for anything they do which clearly promotes victory [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: It would be difficult to condemn soldiers for anything they did in the course of a battle or a war that they honestly believed, and had good reason to believe, was necessary, or important, or simply useful in determining the outcome. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: We can't blame unjust aggressors if their own lives are at stake, but what about in a surprise attack on the first day of the war (such as Pearl Harbour)? Or if they massacre the enemy with safe and overwhelming superiority? |
| 23584 | Rejecting Combatant Equality allows just soldiers to be harsher, even to the extreme [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Objections to combatant equality appeal to a sliding scale of 'the more justice, the more right'. …It allows the justice of one's cause to make a difference in the way one fights. …The extreme says soldiers fightly justly can do anything that is useful. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 14) | |
| A reaction: This slippery slope fear seems to be Walzer's main argument in favour of the moral equality of combatants. See Jeff McMahan for the opposing view. |
| 23614 | Even aggressor soldiers are not criminals, so they have equal rights with their opponents [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers fighting for an aggressor state are not themselves criminals: hence their war rights are the same as those of their opponents. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: Walzer's main support for this is that opposing armies never regard one another as intrinsically criminal. It seems inevitable, though, that even the invaders themselves see that they are a bit more criminal than the defenders. |
| 23589 | Kidnapped sailors and volunteers have different obligations to the passengers [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers may stand to civilians like the crew of a liner to its passengers, for whom they must risk their lives. …But would they be so bound if the sailors had been kidnapped? | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
| A reaction: The point, I assume, is that a conscripted army does not have the same obligations as volunteers. I can't imagine that principle being accepted in an army which is a mixture of the two. |
| 23579 | Soldiers will only protect civilians if they feel safe from them [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers must feel safe among civilians if civilians are ever to be safe from soldiers. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 11) | |
| A reaction: This is the great dilemma of any resistance movement. It is very easy for the soldiers to abuse their power, even if they do feel safe. Then what? |
| 23586 | What matters in war is unacceptable targets, not unacceptable weapons [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The crucial distinction in the theory and practice of war is not between prohibited and acceptable weapons but between prohibited and acceptable targets. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: Walzer presents this idea as arising out of discussions about nuclear deterrence. Gas attacks were accepted in WW1 trenches, but modern gas attacks on civilians are a crime. Are nuclear attacks on strictly military targets OK? E.g a fleet. |
| 23591 | If the oppressor is cruel, nonviolence is either surrender, or a mere gesture [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: When one cannot count on the moral code of the oppressor, nonviolence is either a disguised form of surrender or a minimalist way of upholding communal values after a military defeat. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
| A reaction: The point is that ruthless conquerors may just kill the nonviolent, so it would achieve nothing. Nonviolence is only a plausible strategy in a fairly civilised world. Hard to disagree. |
| 23592 | We can only lead war towards peace if we firmly enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: We must begin by insisting upon the rules of war and by holding soldiers rigidly to the norms they set. The restraint of war is the beginning of peace. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
| A reaction: Last sentence of his book. Some cultures have a much greater tradition of ruthless cruelty than others, it seems. Most war ethics seems to concern how the good guys should respond to the bad guys (since the latter hardly care). |
| 7907 | Human killing is worse if the victim is virtuous [Buddhaghosa] |
| Full Idea: In the case of humans killing is the more blameworthy the more virtuous the victim is. | |
| From: Buddhaghosa (Papancasudani [c.400], 9.7-10) | |
| A reaction: This sentiment has almost become a taboo in western society, and yet it is present all the time. The greatest outcry is about murders of really good citizens. Occasionally the murder of a villain causes little regret. |
| 4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Any Christian who feels that body and soul go their separate ways at brain death ought in consistency to hold that they come together only at the point when whatever is destroyed at brain death first came into being. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (When Does a Life Begin? [1985], p.24) | |
| A reaction: Hence Christians probably focus less on brain-death than do doctors and the rest of us. |
| 4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: A week-old embryo without a brain may be a potential human being, but so are a sperm and an ovum that are about to meet in a dish, and it wouldn't be wicked to keep those apart. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (When Does a Life Begin? [1985], p.19) | |
| A reaction: Sounds fine, but it may be a slippery slope. Is it acceptable to deny a place at music school to a potentially great musician? |
| 4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: It makes perfectly good sense to say that I existed before I became a person, just as I existed before I became an adult, or a philosopher. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (When Does a Life Begin? [1985], p.13) | |
| A reaction: The word 'I' needs thought here. I was once a non-adult, but was I ever a non-person? 'Person' is not a clear concept, despite what many philosophers since Locke may think. |
| 2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: It is tempting to see the concept of causation as a product of reason rather than of perception or introspection; something that reason brings to bear on the data of sense, by way of imposing an explanatory order on them. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.154) |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Somehow we have got it into our heads that time itself is a process of change. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.12) |