Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Stilpo, Alex Oliver and Francis Hutcheson

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50 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver]
     Full Idea: A metaphysical theory hs two parts: ontology and ideology. The ontology consists of the entities which the theory says exist; the ideology consists of the ideas which are expressed within the theory using predicates. Ideology sorts into categories.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §02.1)
     A reaction: Say 'what there is', and 'what we can say about it'. The modern notion remains controversial (see Ladyman and Ross, for example), so it is as well to start crystalising what metaphysics is. I am enthusiastic, but nervous about what is being said.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
Reason is our power of finding out true propositions [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Reason is our power of finding out true propositions.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a very good definition. I don't see how you can define reason without mentioning truth, and you can't believe in reason if you don't believe in truth. The concept of reason entails the concept of a good reason.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver]
     Full Idea: One might give Ockham's Razor a bit more content by advising belief in only those entities which are causally efficacious.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §03)
     A reaction: He cites Armstrong as taking this line, but I immediately think of Shoemaker's account of properties. It seems to me to be the only account which will separate properties from predicates, and bring them under common sense control.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 7. Making Modal Truths
Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
     Full Idea: The definition of truth-makers entails that a truth-maker for a given necessary truth is equally a truth-maker for every other necessary truth.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §24)
     A reaction: Maybe we could accept this. Necessary truths concern the way things have to be, so all realities will embody them. Are we to say that nothing makes a necessary truth true?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Slingshot Argument: if truth-makers work for equivalent sentences and co-referring substitute sentences, then if 'the numbers + S1 = the numbers' has a truth-maker, then 'the numbers + S2 = the numbers' will have the same truth-maker.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §24)
     A reaction: [compressed] Hence every sentence has the same truth-maker! Truth-maker fans must challenge one of the premises.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver]
     Full Idea: The route to the existence of properties via ontological commitment provides little information about what properties are like.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §22)
     A reaction: NIce point, and rather important, I would say. I could hardly be committed to something for the sole reason that I had expressed a statement which contained an ontological commitment. Start from the reason for making the statement.
Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver]
     Full Idea: For a predicate to have a referential function is one way, but not the only way, to harbour ontological commitment.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §22)
     A reaction: Presumably the main idea is that the predicate makes some important contribution to a sentence which is held to be true. Maybe reference is achieved by the whole sentence, rather than by one bit of it.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Four adequacy conditions for particulars and properties: asymmetry of instantiation; different particulars can have the same property; particulars can have many properties; two properties can be instantiated by the same particulars.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §09)
     A reaction: The distinction between particulars and universals has been challenged (e.g. by Ramsey and MacBride). There are difficulties in the notion of 'instantiation', and in the notion of two properties being 'the same'.
If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver]
     Full Idea: If properties are sui generis entities, one must decide whether they are abstract or concrete.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §09)
     A reaction: A nice basic question! I take the real properties to be concrete, but we abstract from them, especially from their similarities, and then become deeply confused about the ontology, because our language doesn't mark the distinctions clearly.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver]
     Full Idea: One conception of properties says there are only as many properties as are needed to be constituents of laws.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §03)
     A reaction: I take this view to the be precise opposite of the real situation. The properties are what lead to the laws. Properties are internal to nature, and laws are imposed from outside, which is ridiculous unless you think there is an active deity.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Both properties and particulars can be taken as either sui generis or as constructions, so we have four options: both sui generis, or both constructions, or one of each.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §09)
     A reaction: I think I favour both being sui generis. God didn't make the objects, then add their properties, or make the properties then create some instantiations. There can't be objects without properties, or objectless properties (except in thought).
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver]
     Full Idea: The types of expressions which have properties as their meanings may vary, the chief candidates being predicates, such as '...is wise', and abstract singular terms, such as 'wisdom'.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §02)
     A reaction: This seems to be important, because there is too much emphasis on predicates. If this idea is correct, we need some account of what 'abstract' means, which is notoriously tricky.
There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Properties in semantic theory: functions from worlds to extensions ('Californian'), reference, as opposed to sense, of predicates (Frege), reference to universals (Russell), reference to situations (Barwise/Perry), and composition from context (Lewis).
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §02 n12)
     A reaction: [compressed; 'Californian' refers to Carnap and Montague; the Lewis view is p,67 of Oliver]. Frege misses out singular terms, or tries to paraphrase them away. Barwise and Perry sound promising to me. Situations involve powers.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver]
     Full Idea: I rule that tropes are not properties, because it is not true that one and the same trope of redness is instantiated by two books.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §12)
     A reaction: This seems right, but has very far-reaching implications, because it means there are no properties, and no two things have the same properties, so there can be no generalisations about properties, let alone laws. ..But they have equivalence sets.
The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Using the predicate '...is exactly similar to...' we can sort tropes into equivalence sets, these sets serving as properties and relations. For example, the property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of redness.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §12)
     A reaction: You have somehow to get from scarlet and vermilion, which have exact similarity within their sets, to redness, which doesn't.
The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver]
     Full Idea: It is usual to hold an aristotelian conception of tropes, according to which tropes are present in their particular instances, and which does not allow for uninstantiated tropes.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §12)
     A reaction: What are you discussing when you ask what colour the wall should be painted? Presumably we can imagine non-existent tropes. If I vividly imagine my wall looking yellow, have I brought anything into existence?
Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Some trope theorists give accounts of particulars. Sets of tropes will not do because they are always abstract, but we might say that particulars are (concrete) mereological wholes of the tropes which they instantiate.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §12)
     A reaction: Looks like a non-starter to me. How can abstract entities add up to a mereological whole which is concrete?
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver]
     Full Idea: More than one trope can occupy the same place at the same time, and a trope occupies a place without having parts which occupy parts of the place.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §12)
     A reaction: This is the general question of the size of a spatial trope, or 'how many red tropes in a tin of red paint?'
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals
'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver]
     Full Idea: The 'structural universals' methane and butane are each made up of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §07)
     A reaction: He cites Lewis 1986, who is criticising Armstrong. If you insist on having universals, they might (in this case) best be described as 'patterns', which would be useful for structuralism in mathematics. They reduce to relations.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 3. Instantiated Universals
Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver]
     Full Idea: So-called aristotelian universals have some queer features: one universal can be wholly present at different places at the same time, and two universals can occupy the same place at the same time.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11)
     A reaction: If you want to make a metaphysical doctrine look ridiculous, stating it in very simple language will often do the job. Belief in fairies is more plausible than the first of these two claims.
Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Properties and relations of abstract objects may need to be acknowledged, but they would have no spatio-temporal location, so they cannot instantiate Aristotelian universals, there being nowhere for such universals to be.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things
     A reaction: Maybe. Why can't the second-order properties be in the same location as the first-order ones? If the reply is that they would seem to be in many places at once, that is only restating the original problem of universals at a higher level.
If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver]
     Full Idea: If universals are to ground similarities, it is hard to see why one should admit universals which only happen to be instantiated once.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11)
     A reaction: He is criticising Armstrong, who holds that universals must be instantiated. This is a good point about any metaphysics which makes resemblance basic.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver]
     Full Idea: We may have to accept uninstantiated universals because the properties and relations of abstract objects may need to be acknowledged.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11)
     A reaction: This is the problem of 'abstract reference'. 'Courage matters more than kindness'; 'Pink is more like red than like yellow'. Not an impressive argument. All you need is second-level abstraction.
Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Uninstantiated properties and relations may do some useful philosophical work.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things
     A reaction: Their value isn't just philosophical; hopes and speculations depend on them. This doesn't make universals mind-independent. I think the secret is a clear understanding of the word 'abstract' (which I don't have).
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver]
     Full Idea: One view of instantiation is that it is the set-membership predicate.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §10)
     A reaction: This cuts the Gordian knot rather nicely, but I don't like it, if the view of sets is extensional. We need to account for natural properties, and we need to exclude mere 'categorial' properties.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver]
     Full Idea: We can say that 'Harvard-nominalism' is the thesis that there are no abstract objects, 'Oz-nominalism' that there are no universals, and Goodman's nominalism rejects entities, such as sets, which fail to obey a certain principle of composition.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §15 n46)
     A reaction: Personally I'm a Goodman-Harvard-Oz nominalist. What are you rebelling against? What have you got? We've been mesmerized by the workings of our own minds, which are trying to grapple with a purely physical world.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver]
     Full Idea: If a particular thing is a bundle of located universals, we might say it is a mereological fusion of them, but if two universals can be instantiated by more than one particular, then two particulars can have the same universals, and be the same thing.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11)
     A reaction: This and Idea 10725 pretty thoroughly demolish the idea that objects could be just bundles of universals. The problem pushes some philosophers back to the idea of 'substance', or some sort of 'substratum' which has the universals.
Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver]
     Full Idea: If a particular thing is a bundle of located universals, we might say that it is the set of its universals, but this won't work because the thing can be concrete but sets are abstract.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §11)
     A reaction: This objection applies just as much to tropes (abstract particulars) as it does to universals.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver]
     Full Idea: Natural science is up to its ears in modal notions because of its use of the concepts of disposition, causation and law.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §15)
     A reaction: This is aimed at Quine. It might be possible for an auster physicist to dispense with these concepts, by merely describing patterns of observed behaviour.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / i. Conceptual priority
Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver]
     Full Idea: I find the notion of conceptual priority barely intelligible.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §19 n48)
     A reaction: I don't think I agree, though there is a lot of vagueness and intuition involved, and not a lot of hard argument. Can you derive A from B, but not B from A? Is A inconceivable without B, but B conceivable without A?
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
Reason is too slow and doubtful to guide all actions, which need external and moral senses [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: We boast of our mighty reason above other animals, but its processes are too slow, too full of doubt, to serve us in every exigency, either for our preservation, without external senses, or to influence our actions for good without the moral sense.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.III)
     A reaction: This idea was taken up by Hume, and it must have influence Hume's general scepticism about the importance of reason. What this idea misses is the enormous influence of prior reasoning on our quick decisions.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
We approve of actions by a superior moral sense [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: By a superior sense, which I call a moral one, we approve the actions of others.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], Intro)
     A reaction: This tries to present moral insight as being on a par with the famous five senses. This doesn't seem quite right to me; separate parts of me can operate individual senses, but the whole of me is required for moral judgements, based on evidence.
We dislike a traitor, even if they give us great benefit [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Let us consider if a traitor, who would sell his own country to us, may not often be as advantageous to us, as an hero who defends us: and yet we can love the treason, and hate the traitor.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §I.VI)
     A reaction: A nice example, which certainly refutes any claim that morality is entirely and directly self-interested. High-minded idealism, though, is not the only alternative explanation. We admire loyalty, but not loyalty to, say, Hitler.
The moral sense is not an innate idea, but an ability to approve or disapprove in a disinterested way [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: The moral sense is not an innate idea or knowledge, but a determination of our minds to receive the simple ideas of approbation or condemnation, from actions observed, antecedent to any opinions of advantage or loss to redound to ourselves.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §I.VIII)
     A reaction: This may claim a pure moral intuition, but it is also close to Kantian universalising of the rules for behaviour. It is also a variation on Descartes' 'natural light' of reason. Of course, if we say the ideas are 'received', where are they received from?
We cannot choose our moral feelings, otherwise bribery could affect them [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Neither benevolence nor any other affection or desire can be directly raised by volition; if they could, then we could be bribed into any affection whatsoever toward any object.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.IV)
     A reaction: Of course, notoriously, the vast mass of people have often been bribed to love a politician, by low taxes, or bread and circuses. Still, you cannot choose to love or admire someone, you just do. Not much free will there.
Everyone feels uneasy when seeing others in pain, unless the others are evil [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Every mortal is made uneasy by any grievous misery he sees another involved in, unless the person be imagined morally evil.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §V.VIII)
     A reaction: This is the natural compassion on which Hume built his moral theory. This remark emphasises that a concern for justice is just as important as a compassion for pain. Kant was more interested in what we deserve than in what we get.
Can't the moral sense make mistakes, as the other senses do? [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Can there not be a right and wrong state of our moral sense, as there is in our other senses?
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV)
     A reaction: Hutcheson replies by saying something like they are both fully reliable in normal conditions. It remains, though, a very good question for the intuitionist to face, as the moral sense is supposed to be direct and reliable, but how do you check?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
Human nature seems incapable of universal malice, except what results from self-love [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Human nature seems scarce capable of malicious disinterested hatred, or an ultimate desire of the misery of others, when we imagine them not pernicious to us, or opposite to our interests; ..that is only the effect of self-love, not disinterested malice.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.VII)
     A reaction: I suppose it is true that even the worst criminals brooding in prison don't wish the entire population of some foreign country to die in pain. Only a very freakish person would wish the human race were extinct. A very nice observation.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / i. Self-interest
As death approaches, why do we still care about family, friends or country? [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: How comes it that we do not lose, at the approach of death, all concern for our families, friends, or country?
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.V)
     A reaction: A nice question. No doubt some people do cease to care, but on the whole it raises the 'last round' problem in social contract theory, which is why fulfil your part of a bargain if it is too late to receive the repayment afterwards?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism
My action is not made good by a good effect, if I did not foresee and intend it [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: No good effect, which I did not actually foresee and intend, makes my action morally good.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §III.XII)
     A reaction: This is one of the parents of utilitarianism repudiating pure consequentialism. Bentham sharply divided the action (which is consequentialist) from the person (who has useful intentions, but is not particulary important); this division is misleading.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness
Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: In the following discourse, happiness denotes pleasant sensation of any kind, or continued state of such sensations.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], Intro)
     A reaction: This is a very long way from Greek eudaimonia. Hutcheson seems to imply that I would be happy if I got high on drugs after my family had just burnt to death. Socrates points out that scratching an itch is a very pleasant sensation (Idea 132).
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / d. Courage
Contempt of danger is just madness if it is not in some worthy cause [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Mere courage, or contempt of danger, if we conceive it to have no regard to the defence of the innocent, or repairing of wrongs or self-interest, would only entitle its possessor to bedlam.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.I)
     A reaction: If many criminals would love to rob a bank, but only a few have the nerve to attempt it, we can hardly deny that the latter exhibit a sort of courage. The Greeks say that good sense must be involved, but few of them were so moral about courage.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
You can't form moral rules without an end, which needs feelings and a moral sense [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: What rule of actions can be formed, without relation to some end proposed? Or what end can be proposed, without presupposing instincts, desires, affections, or a moral sense, it will not be easy to explain.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV)
     A reaction: We have no reason to think that 'instincts, desires and affections' will give us the remotest guidance on how to behave morally well (though we would expect them to aid our survival). How could a moral sense give a reason, without spotting a rule?
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §III.VIII)
     A reaction: The first use of a phrase taken up by Bentham. This is not just an anticipation of utilitarianism, it is utilitarianism, with all its commitment to consequentialism (but see Idea 6246), and to the maximising of happiness. It is a brilliant idea.
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
The loss of perfect rights causes misery, but the loss of imperfect rights reduces social good [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Perfect rights are necessary to the public good, and it makes those miserable whose rights are thus violated; …imperfect rights tend to the improvement and increase of good in a society, but are not necessary to prevent universal misery.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.VI)
     A reaction: This is a very utilitarian streak in Hutcheson, converting natural law into its tangible outcome in actual happiness or misery. The distinction here is interesting (taken up by Mill), but there is a very blurred borderline.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
We are asked to follow God's ends because he is our benefactor, but why must we do that? [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: The reasons assigned for actions are such as 'It is the end proposed by the Deity'. But why do we approve concurring with the divine ends? The reason is given 'He is our benefactor', but then, for what reason do we approve concurrence with a benefactor?
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I)
     A reaction: Characteristic of what MacIntyre calls the 'Enlightenment Project', which is the application of Cartesian scepticism to proving the foundations of morals. Proof beyond proof is continually demanded. If you could meet God, you would obey without question.
Why may God not have a superior moral sense very similar to ours? [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: Why may not the Deity have something of a superior kind, analogous to our moral sense, essential to him?
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I)
     A reaction: This is Plato's notion of the gods, as beings who are profoundly wise, and understand all the great moral truths, but are not the actual originators of those truths. The idea that God creates morality actually serves to undermine morality.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good
We say God is good if we think everything he does aims at the happiness of his creatures [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: We call the Deity morally good, when we apprehend that his whole providence tends to the universal happiness of his creatures.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.V)
     A reaction: From the point of view of eternity, we might accept that God aims at some even greater good than the happiness of a bunch of miserable little creatures whose bad behaviour merits little reward. The greater good needs to be impressive, though.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
If goodness is constituted by God's will, it is a tautology to say God's will is good [Hutcheson]
     Full Idea: To call the laws of the supreme Deity good or holy or just, if these be constituted by laws, or the will of a superior, must be an insignificant tautology, amounting to no more than 'God wills what he wills' or 'His will is conformable to his will'.
     From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.V)
     A reaction: This argues not only against God as the source of morality, but also against any rules, such as those of the Categorical Imperative. Why should I follow the Categorical Imperative? What has value must dictate the rules. Is obedience the highest value?
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god."
     From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5