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Full Idea
Hobbes (and Descartes, and many contemporaries) argued that the traditional idea that reason should control the passions was an error, and that (properly understood) our emotions would guide us in the right direction.
Gist of Idea
It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own
Source
report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2
Book Ref
Tuck,Richard: 'Hobbes: a very short introduction' [OUP 2002], p.65
A Reaction
I'm an intellectualist on this one. It strikes me as rather naïve and romantic to think that unthinking emotion could ever consistently approach what is right. A recipe for disaster.
| 7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [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] |
| 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] |