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Full Idea
If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice).
Gist of Idea
Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things
Source
Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
Book Ref
Williams,Bernard: 'Problems of the Self: Papers 1956-1972' [CUP 1979], p.225
A Reaction
He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic.
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 5160 | There is a mean of feelings, as in our responses to the good or bad fortune of others [Aristotle] |
| 23913 | Nearly all the good and bad states of character are concerned with feelings [Aristotle] |
| 7832 | Stoics want to suppress emotions, but Spinoza overcomes them with higher emotions [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 4863 | An emotion comes more under our control in proportion to how well it is known to us [Spinoza] |
| 24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
| 4909 | The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them [Carter,R] |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |