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Single Idea 23816

[filed under theme 28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good ]

Full Idea

Anyone whose attention and love are directed towards the reality outside the world recognises that he is bound by the permanent obligation to remedy …all the privations of soul and body which are liable to destroy or damage any human being whatsoever.

Gist of Idea

Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity

Source

Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.225)

Book Ref

Weil,Simone: 'An Anthology' [Penguin 1986], p.225

A Reaction

[abridged] An interesting attempt to articulate the religious motivation of morality. The Euthyphro question remains - of why this vision of a wholly good higher morality should motivate anyone, unless they already possess a desire for that good.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [view of morality as identical with God]:

1662 A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates]
2058 God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato]
6291 No one is good except God [Jesus]
8140 God is love [John]
8141 He that does evil has not seen God [John]
5757 God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius]
5758 God is the good [Boethius]
4825 To say that God promotes what is good is false, as it sets up a goal beyond God [Spinoza]
6250 We say God is good if we think everything he does aims at the happiness of his creatures [Hutcheson]
8105 We can't exactly conceive virtue without the idea of God [Joubert]
23816 Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity [Weil]
23754 The only choice is between supernatural good, or evil [Weil]
22345 Moral philosophy needs a central concept with all the traditional attributes of God [Murdoch]
20702 The goodness of God may be a higher form than the goodness of moral agents [Davies,B]