Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, Hippocrates and Robert Axelrod

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4 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind

23217	All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
	Full Idea: Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
	From: Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
	A reaction: If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.

23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 8. Contract Strategies

22725	When players don't meet again, defection is the best strategy [Axelrod]
	Full Idea: When players will never meet again, the strategy of defection is the only stable strategy.
	From: Robert Axelrod (The Evolution of Co-Operation [1984], 5)
	A reaction: This gives good grounds for any community's mistrust of transient strangers, such as tourists. And yet any sensible tourist will want communities to trust tourists, and will therefore behave in a reliable way.

22724	Good strategies avoid conflict, respond to hostility, forgive, and are clear [Axelrod]
	Full Idea: Successful game strategies avoid unnecessary conflict, are provoked by an uncalled for defection, forgive after a provocation, and behave clearly so the other player can adapt.
	From: Robert Axelrod (The Evolution of Co-Operation [1984], 1)
	A reaction: [compressed] Exactly what you would expect from a nice but successful school teacher. The strategies for success in these games is the same as the rules for educating a person into cooperative behaviour. TIT FOR TAT does all these.

25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights

6005	Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]
	Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us.
	From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus
	A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts?