Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Pittacus, Owen Flanagan and W. David Ross

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71 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
Even the gods cannot strive against necessity [Pittacus, by Diog. Laertius]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
The goodness of opinions depends on their grounds, and corresponding degrees of conviction [Ross]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
Knowledge is superior to opinion because it is certain [Ross]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
I prefer the causal theory to sense data, because sensations are events, not apprehensions [Ross]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability
Two goods may be comparable, although they are not commensurable [Ross]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self
The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan]
We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan]
Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan]
We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind
Identical objects must have identical value [Ross]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / f. Emotion and reason
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Aesthetic enjoyment combines pleasure with insight [Ross]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
Beauty is neither objective nor subjective, but a power of producing certain mental events [Ross]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan]
Moral duties are as fundamental to the universe as the axioms of mathematics [Ross]
The beauty of a patch of colour might be the most important fact about it [Ross]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Ross said moral principles are self-evident from the facts, but not from pure thought [Ross, by Dancy,J]
The moral convictions of thoughtful educated people are the raw data of ethics [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
Value is held to be either a quality, or a relation (usually between a thing and a mind) [Ross]
The arguments for value being an objective or a relation fail, so it appears to be a quality [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
The thing is intrinsically good if it would be good when nothing else existed [Ross]
All things being equal, we all prefer the virtuous to be happy, not the vicious [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
An instrumentally good thing might stay the same, but change its value because of circumstances [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity
Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
We can ask of pleasure or beauty whether they are valuable, but not of goodness [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
The three intrinsic goods are virtue, knowledge and pleasure [Ross]
The four goods are: virtue, pleasure, just allocation of pleasure, and knowledge [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
'Right' and 'good' differ in meaning, as in a 'right action' and a 'good man' [Ross]
If there are two equally good acts, they may both be right, but neither a duty [Ross]
In the past 'right' just meant what is conventionally accepted [Ross]
Goodness is a wider concept than just correct ethical conduct [Ross]
Motives decide whether an action is good, and what is done decides whether it was right [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue
Virtue is superior to pleasure, as pleasure is never a duty, but goodness is [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / e. Good as knowledge
All other things being equal, a universe with more understanding is better [Ross]
Morality is not entirely social; a good moral character should love truth [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia
We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
We clearly value good character or understanding, as well as pleasure [Ross]
No one thinks it doesn't matter whether pleasure is virtuously or viciously acquired [Ross]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 3. Promise Keeping
Promise-keeping is bound by the past, and is not concerned with consequences [Ross]
Promises create a new duty to a particular person; they aren't just a strategy to achieve well-being [Ross]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / c. Particularism
Prima facie duties rest self-evidently on particular circumstance [Ross]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / h. Respect
People lose their rights if they do not respect the rights of others [Ross]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty
We should do our duty, but not from a sense of duty [Ross]
Be faithful, grateful, just, beneficent, non-malevolent, and improve yourself [Ross, by PG]
We like people who act from love, but admire more the people who act from duty [Ross]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative
An act may be described in innumerable ways [Ross]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
We should use money to pay debts before giving to charity [Ross]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
Rights were originally legal, and broadened to include other things [Ross]
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
Rights can be justly claimed, so animals have no rights, as they cannot claim any [Ross]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan]
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom [Flanagan]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan]