15 ideas
13267 | Temporal parts is a crazy doctrine, because it entails constantly creating stuff ex nihilo [Thomson, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Thomson famously objects that the doctrine of temporal parts is 'a crazy metaphysic - obviously false', since it entails that material objects are constantly being generated ex nihilo (or, at least, the stuff of which they are composed is). | |
From: report of Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (Parthood and Identity across Time [1983], p.210) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 2.2 | |
A reaction: The related objections are to ask what the temporal 'width' of a part is, and whether the joins are visible. |
16209 | How can point-duration slices of people have beliefs or desires? [Thomson] |
Full Idea: Can one really think that point-duration temporal slices of bodies believe things or want things? | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (People and Their Bodies [1997], p.211), quoted by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 2.9 n21 | |
A reaction: There is a problem with a slice doing anything long-term. The bottom line is that things are said to 'endure', but that is precisely what time-slices are unable to do. Hawley rejects this idea. |
16978 | If conceivability is a priori coherence, that implies possibility [Tahko] |
Full Idea: Maybe conceivability could be understood as a priori coherence, which implies possibility. | |
From: Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite sure why 'a priori' has to be there. Assessing conceivability just is assessing coherence. That couches it as a rational activity, rather than as a purely imaginary one. Trying to conceive a square circle isn't just daydreaming. |
16975 | Essences are used to explain natural kinds, modality, and causal powers [Tahko] |
Full Idea: Essences are supposed to do a lot of explanatory work: natural kinds can be identified in terms of their essences, metaphysical modality can be reduced to essence, the causal power of objects can be explained with the help of essence. | |
From: Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 1) | |
A reaction: Natural kinds and modality are OK with me, but I'm dubious about the third one. If an essence explains something's causal powers, I have no idea what an essence might be. Essence are largely characterised in terms of causal powers. |
4062 | No one is morally required to make huge sacrifices to keep someone else alive for nine months [Thomson] |
Full Idea: No one is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, and other interests and commitments, for nine months, in order to keep another person alive. | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.135) | |
A reaction: It is a trade-off. It might become a duty if society (or even a husband) urgently needed the baby. |
4058 | Is someone's right to life diminished if they were conceived by a rape? [Thomson] |
Full Idea: Can we say that a person has a right to life only if they didn't come into existence through rape, or that the latter have less right to life? | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.126) | |
A reaction: This would clearly be an inconsistency for some opponents of abortion who allow rape as an exception. |
4059 | It can't be murder for a mother to perform an abortion on herself to save her own life [Thomson] |
Full Idea: It cannot seriously be thought to be murder if a mother performs an abortion on herself to save her own life (if, say, she had a serious heart condition). | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.127) | |
A reaction: An extreme view might condemn such an action, but it can hardly be based on the 'sanctity of life'. |
4060 | The right to life does not bestow the right to use someone else's body to support that life [Thomson] |
Full Idea: Having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body. | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.131) | |
A reaction: A very nice point. You have a right to your life once you are the sole owner of it. |
4061 | The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but not to be killed unjustly [Thomson] |
Full Idea: Maybe the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but in the right not to be killed unjustly. | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.131) | |
A reaction: Sounds tautological. There is no right to life, then, but just the requirement that people behave justly? |
4057 | A newly fertilized ovum is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree [Thomson] |
Full Idea: A newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells, is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. | |
From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971], p.125) | |
A reaction: This relies heavily on the philosopher's concept of a 'person', but it seems right to me. |
4695 | Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights [Thomson, by Foot] |
Full Idea: Thomson suggests that abortion can be justified without the need to deny that the foetus has the moral rights of a human person. | |
From: report of Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971]) by Philippa Foot - Killing and Letting Die p.86 | |
A reaction: Thomson uses a dubious analogy between pregnancy and being hooked up to someone for life-support. Presumably killing an innocent person is occasionally justifiable, but the situation would normally be more abnormal than pregnancy. |
4696 | The foetus is safe in the womb, so abortion initiates its death, with the mother as the agent. [Foot on Thomson] |
Full Idea: A fetus is not in jeopardy because it is in the womb, so an abortion originates the fatal sequence, and the mother is the agent. Hence Thomson's argument is invalid, and we must return to question of the moral status of the foetus. | |
From: comment on Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971]) by Philippa Foot - Killing and Letting Die p.86 | |
A reaction: The problem would be if a 'person' was safe, but only if I continue some sustained effort which is not required of me by normal duties. |
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? |
16976 | Scientific essentialists tend to characterise essence in terms of modality (not vice versa) [Tahko] |
Full Idea: The conception of essence taken for granted in much of the 'scientific essentialist' literature is that essence can be explained in terms of modality (rather than the other way round). | |
From: Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 2.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Ellis and Bird] That is, presumably, that they are inclined to say that the essence of gold is a set of necessary properties. Maybe conceptual necessities dictate the properties of gold, and they in turn dictate metaphysical necessities? |
16977 | If essence is modal and laws are necessary, essentialist knowledge is found by scientists [Tahko] |
Full Idea: If essence is conceived in terms of modality and the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, it seems that the laws of nature constitute essentialist knowledge, so the discovery of essences is mostly due to scientists. | |
From: Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This seems muddled to me. The idea that the laws themselves are essences is way off target. No one thinks all knowledge of necessities is essentialist. Mumford, for example, doesn't even believe in laws. |