|
6217
|
Natural law is supplied to the human mind by reality and human nature [Cumberland]
|
|
Full Idea:
Some truths of natural law, concerning guides to moral good and evil, and duties not laid down by civil law and government, are necessarily supplied ot the human mind by the nature of things and of men.
|
|
From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I)
|
|
A reaction:
I agree that some moral truths have the power of self-evidence. If you say they are built into the mind, we now ask what did the building, and evolution is the only answer, and hence we distance ourselves from the truths, seeing them as strategies.
|
|
6221
|
If there are different ultimate goods, there will be conflicting good actions, which is impossible [Cumberland]
|
|
Full Idea:
If there be posited different ultimate ends, whose causes are opposed to each other, then there will be truly good actions likewise opposed to each other, which is impossible.
|
|
From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XVI)
|
|
A reaction:
A very interesting argument for there being one good rather than many, and an argument which I don't recall in any surviving Greek text. A response might be to distinguish between what is 'right' and what is 'good'. See David Ross.
|
|
6220
|
The happiness of all contains the happiness of each, and promotes it [Cumberland]
|
|
Full Idea:
The common happiness of all contains the greatest happiness for each, and most effectively promotes it. …There is no path leading anyone to his own happiness, other than the path which leads all to the common happiness.
|
|
From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI)
|
|
A reaction:
I take this as a revolutionary idea, which leads to utilitarianism. It is doing what seemed to the Greeks unthinkable, which is combining hedonism with altruism. There is no proof for it, but it is a wonderful clarion call for building a civil society.
|
|
6216
|
Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society [Cumberland]
|
|
Full Idea:
Natural law is certain propositions of immutable truth, which guide voluntary actions about the choice of good and avoidance of evil, and which impose an obligation to act, even without regard to civil laws, and ignoring compacts of governments.
|
|
From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I)
|
|
A reaction:
Not a popular view, but I am sympathetic. If you are in a foreign country and find a person lying in pain, there is a terrible moral deficiency in anyone who just ignores such a thing. No legislation can take away a person's right of self-defence.
|
|
8326
|
Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
|
|
From:
report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
|
|
A reaction:
Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.
|
|
10379
|
Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
|
|
From:
report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
|
|
A reaction:
David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.
|