32 ideas
| 8952 | We reach 'reflective equilibrium' when intuitions and theory completely align [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: A state of 'reflective equilibrium' is when our theory and our intuitions become completely aligned | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 12.IV) | |
| A reaction: [Rawls made this concept famous] This is a helpful concept in trying to spell out the ideal which is the dream of believers in 'pure reason' - that there is a goal in which everything comes right. The problem is when people have different intuitions! |
| 8943 | Three-valued logic says excluded middle and non-contradition are not tautologies [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: In three-valued logic (L3), neither the law of excluded middle (p or not-p), nor the law of non-contradiction (not(p and not-p)) will be tautologies. If p has the value 'indeterminate' then so will not-p. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 07.I) | |
| A reaction: I quite accept that the world is full of indeterminate propositions, and that excluded middle and non-contradiction can sometimes be uncertain, but I am reluctant to accept that what is being offered here should be called 'logic'. |
| 8945 | Fuzzy logic has many truth values, ranging in fractions from 0 to 1 [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: In fuzzy logic objects have properties to a greater or lesser degree, and truth values are given as fractions or decimals, ranging from 0 to 1. Not-p is defined as 1-p, and other formula are defined in terms of maxima and minima for sets. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 07.II) | |
| A reaction: The question seems to be whether this is actually logic, or a recasting of probability theory. Susan Haack attacks it. If logic is the study of how truth is preserved as we move between propositions, then 0 and 1 need a special status. |
| 8951 | Classical logic is: excluded middle, non-contradiction, contradictions imply all, disjunctive syllogism [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: For simplicity, we can say that 'classical logic' amounts to the truth of four sentences: 1) either p or not-p; 2) it is not the case that both p and not-p; 3) from p and not-p, infer q; 4) from p or q and not-p, infer q. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 12.I) | |
| A reaction: [She says there are many ways of specifying classical logic] Intuition suggests that 2 and 4 are rather hard to dispute, while 1 is ignoring some grey areas, and 3 is totally ridiculous. There is, of course, plenty of support for 3! |
| 8950 | Logic formalizes how we should reason, but it shouldn't determine whether we are realists [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: Even if one is inclined to be a realist about everything, it is hard to see why our logic should be the determiner. Logic is supposed to formalize how we ought to reason, but whether or not we should be realists is a matter of philosophy, not logic. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 09.I) | |
| A reaction: Nice to hear a logician saying this. I do not see why talk in terms of an object is a commitment to its existence. We can discuss the philosopher's stone, or Arthur's sword, or the Loch Ness monster, or gravitinos, with degrees of commitment. |
| 8946 | We could make our intuitions about heaps precise with a million-valued logic [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: We could construct a 1,000,000-valued logic that would allow our intuitions concerning a heap to vary exactly with the amount of sand in the heap. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008]) | |
| A reaction: Presumably only an infinite number of grains of sand would then produce a true heap, and even one grain would count as a bit of a heap, which must both be wrong, so I can't see this helping much. |
| 12354 | A 'categorial' property is had by virtue of being or having an item from a category [Wedin] |
| Full Idea: A 'categorial' property is a property something has by virtue of being or having an item from one of the categories. | |
| From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], V.5) | |
| A reaction: I deny that these are 'properties'. A thing is categorised according to its properties. To denote the category as a further property is the route to madness (well, to a regress). |
| 12358 | Substance is a principle and a kind of cause [Wedin] |
| Full Idea: Substance [ousia] is a principle [arché] and a kind of cause [aitia]. | |
| From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], 1041a09) | |
| A reaction: The fact that substance is a cause is also the reason why substance is the ultimate explanation. It is here that I take the word 'power' to capture best what Aristotle has in mind. |
| 8944 | Vagueness can involve components (like baldness), or not (like boredom) [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: Vague terms come in at least two different kinds: those whose constituent parts come in discrete packets (bald, rich, red) and those that don't (beauty, boredom, niceness). | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 07.II) | |
| A reaction: The first group seem to be features of the external world, and the second all occur in the mind. Baldness may be vague, but presumably hairs are (on the whole) not. Nature doesn't care whether someone is actually 'bald' or not. |
| 12346 | Form explains why some matter is of a certain kind, and that is explanatory bedrock [Wedin] |
| Full Idea: The form of a thing (of a given kind) explains why certain matter constitutes a thing of that kind, and with this, Aristotle holds, we have reached explanatory bedrock. | |
| From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: We must explain an individual tiger which is unusually docile. It must have an individual form which makes it a tiger, but also an individual form which makes it docile. |
| 8941 | We can't explain 'possibility' in terms of 'possible' worlds [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: Explaining 'it is possible that p' by saying p is true in at least one possible world doesn't get me very far. If I don't understand what possibility is, then appealing to possible worlds is not going to do me much good. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 06.III) | |
| A reaction: This seems so blatant that I assume friends of possible worlds will have addressed the problem. Note that you will also need to understand 'possible' to define necessity as 'true in all possible worlds'. Necessarily-p is not-possibly-not-p. |
| 8947 | If all truths are implied by a falsehood, then not-p might imply both q and not-q [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: If all truths are implied by a falsehood, then 'if there are no trees in the park then there is no shade' and 'if there are no trees in the park there is plenty of shade' both come out as true. Intuitively, though, the second one is false. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 08.I) | |
| A reaction: The rule that a falsehood implies all truths must be the weakest idea in classical logic, if it actually implies a contradiction. This means we must take an interest in relevance logics. |
| 8949 | In relevance logic, conditionals help information to flow from antecedent to consequent [Fisher] |
| Full Idea: A good account of relevance logic suggests that a conditional will be true when the flow of information is such that a conditional is the device that helps information to flow from the antecedent to the consequent. | |
| From: Jennifer Fisher (On the Philosophy of Logic [2008], 08.III) | |
| A reaction: Hm. 'If you are going out, you'll need an umbrella'. This passes on information about 'out', but also brings in new information. 'If you are going out, I'm leaving you'. What flows is an interpretation of the antecedent. Tricky. |
| 23110 | Human injustice is not a permanent feature of communities [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Men's propensity to injustice is not a permanent aspect of community life. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.245), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism | |
| A reaction: This attitude is dismissed by Kekes, with some justification, as naïve optimism. What could be Rawls's grounds for making such a claim? It couldn't be the facts of human history. |
| 15676 | Rawls defends the priority of right over good [Rawls, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Rawls defends the thesis of the priority of the right over the good. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.7:100 | |
| A reaction: It depends whether you are talking about actions, or about states of affairs. I don't see how any state of affairs can be preferred to the good one. It may be that the highest duty of action is to do what is right, rather than to achieve what is good. |
| 4123 | A fair arrangement is one that parties can agree to without knowing how it will benefit them personally [Rawls, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Rawls's theory is an elaboration of a simple idea: a fair system of arrangements is one that the parties can agree to without knowing how it will benefit them personally. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: The essence of modern Kantian contractualism. It is an appealing principle for building a rational world, but I hear Nietzsche turning in his grave. |
| 21051 | Check your rationality by thinking of your opinion pronounced by the supreme court [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: To check whether we are following public reason we might ask: how would our argument strike us presented in the form of a supreme court opinion? | |
| From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.254), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 10 | |
| A reaction: A very nice practical implementation of Kantian universalisability. How would your opinion sound if it were written into a constitution? |
| 3279 | Utilitarianism inappropriately scales up the individual willingness to make sacrifices [Rawls, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Rawls claims that utilitarianism applies to the problem of many interests a method appropriate for one individual. A single person may accept disadvantages in exchange for benefits, but in society other people get the benefits. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.74,104) by Thomas Nagel - Equality §7 |
| 22406 | The maximisation of happiness must be done fairly [Rawls, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: Rawls has suggested that we should maximise the general happiness only if we do so in a fair way. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (Justice as fairness: Political not Metaphysical [1958]) by J.J.C. Smart - Outline of a System of Utilitarianism 6 | |
| A reaction: Rawls is usually seen as an opponent of utilitarianism, but if we allow a few supplementary rules we can improve the theory. After all, it has a meta-rule that 'everybody counts as one'. What other supplementary values can there be? Honesty? |
| 21137 | Rawls rejected cosmopolitanism because it doesn't respect the autonomy of 'peoples' [Rawls, by Shorten] |
| Full Idea: Rawls rejected the cosmopolitan extension of his theory because he thought it failed to respect the political autonomy of 'peoples', which was his term of art for societies or political communities. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (The Law of Peoples [1999], p.115-8) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 09 | |
| A reaction: Interesting that you might well start with the concept of 'a people', prior to some sort of social contract, but end up with rather alarming conflicts or indifference between rival peoples. Why should my people help in the famine next door? |
| 3280 | Why does the rational agreement of the 'Original Position' in Rawls make it right? [Nagel on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Why does what it is rational to agree to in Rawls' 'Original Position' determine what is right? | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Thomas Nagel - Equality §7 |
| 20552 | The original position models the idea that citizens start as free and equal [Rawls, by Swift] |
| Full Idea: The original position is presented by Rawls as modelling the sense in which citizens are to be understood as free and equal. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 3 'Strikes' | |
| A reaction: In other words, Rawls's philosophy is not a demonstration of why we should be liberals, but a guidebook for how liberals should go about organising society. |
| 18636 | Choose justice principles in ignorance of your own social situation [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. ...Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the rest of a fair agreement or bargain. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], §03) | |
| A reaction: A famous idea. It tries to impose a Kantian impartiality onto the assessment of political principles. It is a beautifully simple idea, and saying that such impartiality never occurs is no objection to it. Think of a planet far far away. |
| 18631 | All desirable social features should be equal, unless inequality favours the disadvantaged [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favoured. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], §46) | |
| A reaction: In the wholehearted capitalism of the 21st century this sounds like cloud-cuckoo land. As an 'initial position' (just as in the 'Republic') the clean slate brings out some interesting principles. Actual politics takes vested interests as axiomatic. |
| 21119 | Power is only legitimate if it is reasonable for free equal citizens to endorse the constitution [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to reason. | |
| From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.217), quoted by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 02 | |
| A reaction: This is not the actual endorsement of Rousseau, or the tacit endorsement of Locke (by living there), but adds a Kantian appeal to a rational consensus, on which rational people should converge. Very Enlightenment. 'Hypothetical consent'. |
| 20538 | Utilitarians lump persons together; Rawls somewhat separates them; Nozick wholly separates them [Swift on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Rawls objects to utilitarianism because it fails to take seriously the separateness of persons (because there is no overall person to enjoy the overall happiness). But Nozick thinks Rawls does not take the separateness of persons seriously enough. | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 1 'Nozick' | |
| A reaction: In this sense, Nozick seems to fit our picture of a liberal more closely than Rawls does. I think they both exaggerate the separateness of persons, based on a false concept of human nature. |
| 9277 | Rawls's account of justice relies on conventional fairness, avoiding all moral controversy [Gray on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Rawls's account of justice works only with widely accepted intuitions of fairness and relies at no point on controversial positions in ethics. The fruit of this modesty is a pious commentary on conventional moral beliefs. | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 3.6 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is the thought which provoked Nozick to lob his grenade on the subject. It resembles the charges of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche against Kant, that he was just dressing up conventional morality. Are 'controversial' ethics good? |
| 23420 | In a pluralist society we can't expect a community united around one conception of the good [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The fact of pluralism means that the hope of political community must be abandoned, if by such a community we mean a political society united in affirming a general and comprehensive conception of the good. | |
| From: John Rawls (The Idea of Overlapping Consensus [1987]), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Community 'legitimacy' | |
| A reaction: A moderate pluralism might be manageable, but strong, diverse and dogmatic beliefs among sub-groups probably make it impossible. |
| 20527 | Liberty Principle: everyone has an equal right to liberties, if compatible with others' liberties [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: First Principle [Liberty]: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], 46) | |
| A reaction: This is the result of consensus after the initial ignorant position of assessment. It is characteristic of liberalism. I'm struggling to think of a disagreement. |
| 21018 | The social contract has problems with future generations, national boundaries, disabilities and animals [Rawls, by Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Rawls saw four difficulties for justice in the social contract approach: future generations; justice across national boundaries; fair treatment of people with disabilities; and moral issues involving non-human animals. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Martha Nussbaum - Creating Capabilities 4 | |
| A reaction: These are all classic examples of groups who do not have sufficient power to negotiate contracts. |
| 21041 | Justice concerns not natural distributions, or our born location, but what we do about them [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], 17) | |
| A reaction: Lovely quotation. There is no point in railing against the given, and that includes what is given by history, as well as what is given by nature. It comes down to intervening, in history and in nature. How much intervention will individuals tolerate? |
| 23583 | If an aggression is unjust, the constraints on how it is fought are much stricter [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: When a country's right to war is questionable and uncertain, the constraints on the means it can use are all the more severe. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.379), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 14 | |
| A reaction: This is Rawls opposing the idea that combatants are moral equals. The restraints are, of course, moral. In practice aggressors are usually the worst behaved. |