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Single Idea 2383
[filed under theme 23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / c. Motivation for virtue
]
Full Idea
The writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues and vices, yet not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be praised as the means of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living.
Gist of Idea
Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living
Source
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15)
Book Ref
Hobbes,Thomas: 'Leviathan', ed/tr. Macpherson,C.B. [Penguin 1981], p.216
The
101 ideas
from Thomas Hobbes
23609
|
I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice
[Hobbes]
|
17233
|
Particulars contain universal things
[Hobbes]
|
17234
|
Motion is losing one place and acquiring another
[Hobbes]
|
17235
|
A cause is the complete sum of the features which necessitate the effect
[Hobbes]
|
17236
|
Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned
[Hobbes]
|
17238
|
Science aims to show causes and generation of things
[Hobbes]
|
17237
|
Definitions of things that are caused must express their manner of generation
[Hobbes]
|
17239
|
Definition is resolution of names into successive genera, and finally the difference
[Hobbes]
|
17241
|
A defined name should not appear in the definition
[Hobbes]
|
17240
|
Definitions are the first step in philosophy
[Hobbes]
|
17242
|
'Petitio principii' is reusing the idea to be defined, in disguised words
[Hobbes]
|
17243
|
Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories
[Hobbes]
|
17244
|
To make a whole, parts needn't be put together, but can be united in the mind
[Hobbes]
|
17245
|
A part of a part is a part of a whole
[Hobbes]
|
14960
|
Bodies are independent of thought, and coincide with part of space
[Hobbes]
|
16670
|
Accidents are just modes of thinking about bodies
[Hobbes]
|
16621
|
Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size
[Hobbes]
|
17246
|
Some accidental features are permanent, unless the object perishes
[Hobbes]
|
17248
|
If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it
[Hobbes]
|
17247
|
The only generalities or universals are names or signs
[Hobbes]
|
17249
|
If you separated two things in the same place, you would also separate the places
[Hobbes]
|
17250
|
If you separate the two places of one thing, you will also separate the thing
[Hobbes]
|
16582
|
We can imagine a point swelling and contracting - but not how this could be done
[Hobbes]
|
17251
|
The feature which picks out or names a thing is usually called its 'essence'
[Hobbes]
|
16600
|
Prime matter is body considered with mere size and extension, and potential
[Hobbes]
|
17252
|
Acting on a body is either creating or destroying a property in it
[Hobbes]
|
17253
|
Change is nothing but movement
[Hobbes]
|
16734
|
The complete power of an event is just the aggregate of the qualities that produced it
[Hobbes]
|
17254
|
An effect needs a sufficient and necessary cause
[Hobbes]
|
17255
|
Two bodies differ when (at some time) you can say something of one you can't say of the other
[Hobbes]
|
16790
|
A body is always the same, whether the parts are together or dispersed
[Hobbes]
|
17257
|
It is the same river if it has the same source, no matter what flows in it
[Hobbes]
|
12853
|
Some individuate the ship by unity of matter, and others by unity of form
[Hobbes]
|
17256
|
If a new ship were made of the discarded planks, would two ships be numerically the same?
[Hobbes]
|
16794
|
As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being
[Hobbes]
|
17258
|
If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to
[Hobbes]
|
17259
|
'Force' is the quantity of movement imposed on something
[Hobbes]
|
2948
|
Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being
[Hobbes]
|
17260
|
Imagination is just weakened sensation
[Hobbes]
|
17261
|
Apart from pleasure and pain, the only emotions are appetite and aversion
[Hobbes]
|
19373
|
A 'conatus' is an initial motion, experienced by us as desire or aversion
[Hobbes, by Arthur,R]
|
16789
|
Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being
[Hobbes]
|
7396
|
Hobbes created English-language philosophy
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7410
|
Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7409
|
Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights'
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7408
|
It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7411
|
The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature
[Hobbes]
|
16688
|
Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses
[Hobbes]
|
16638
|
The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them
[Hobbes]
|
7405
|
Experience can't prove universal truths
[Hobbes]
|
7407
|
Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them
[Hobbes]
|
6212
|
Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others
[Hobbes]
|
6211
|
Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly
[Hobbes]
|
6208
|
Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head
[Hobbes]
|
6209
|
There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us
[Hobbes]
|
6210
|
Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end
[Hobbes]
|
6213
|
A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd
[Hobbes]
|
5337
|
For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love
[Hobbes, by Flanagan]
|
19764
|
Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society
[Hobbes, by Rousseau]
|
20566
|
Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler
[Hobbes, by Oksala]
|
20485
|
Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality
[Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
|
20484
|
We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them
[Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
|
7573
|
The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural
[Hobbes, by Jolley]
|
8014
|
Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them
[Hobbes, by MacIntyre]
|
2356
|
Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes
[Hobbes]
|
2357
|
Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd
[Hobbes]
|
2358
|
Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd
[Hobbes]
|
2363
|
Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars
[Hobbes]
|
2359
|
Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present
[Hobbes]
|
2362
|
The will is just the last appetite before action
[Hobbes]
|
2360
|
'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate
[Hobbes]
|
2361
|
If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition
[Hobbes]
|
2364
|
Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between
[Hobbes]
|
2365
|
Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening
[Hobbes]
|
2366
|
There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another
[Hobbes]
|
2367
|
In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short
[Hobbes]
|
2368
|
Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so
[Hobbes]
|
2371
|
A contract is a mutual transfer of rights
[Hobbes]
|
2372
|
The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it
[Hobbes]
|
2369
|
If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights
[Hobbes]
|
2370
|
All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer
[Hobbes]
|
2373
|
The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy
[Hobbes]
|
2374
|
In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract
[Hobbes]
|
2375
|
Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it
[Hobbes]
|
2382
|
Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others
[Hobbes]
|
2376
|
Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed
[Hobbes]
|
2383
|
Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living
[Hobbes]
|
2380
|
Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence
[Hobbes]
|
2378
|
Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip
[Hobbes]
|
2379
|
If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it
[Hobbes]
|
2377
|
No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen
[Hobbes]
|
23987
|
The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief
[Hobbes, by Goldie]
|
6214
|
Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity
[Hobbes]
|
7559
|
Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it
[Hobbes]
|
8015
|
Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract
[MacIntyre on Hobbes]
|
8016
|
Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of
[MacIntyre on Hobbes]
|
6215
|
'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause
[Hobbes]
|
16620
|
A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form
[Hobbes]
|
16622
|
Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances
[Hobbes]
|
2385
|
If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will
[Hobbes]
|
2384
|
Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary
[Hobbes]
|