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Full Idea
The appreciation of the goodness of the effect is different from desire for the effect, and will originate not the desire but the sense of obligation to produce it.
Gist of Idea
Seeing the goodness of an effect creates the duty to produce it, not the desire
Source
H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925])
Book Ref
Prichard,H.A.: 'Moral Writings' [OUP 2002], p.1
A Reaction
A wonderful rebuttal of Hume, and a much better account of duty than Kant's idea that it arises from reason. Perception of value is what generates duty. And (with Frankfurt) we may say that love is what generates value.
| 9256 | I see the need to pay a debt in a particular instance, and any instance will do [Prichard] |
| 9257 | The complexities of life make it almost impossible to assess morality from a universal viewpoint [Prichard] |
| 9254 | In philosophy the truth can only be reached via the ruins of the false [Prichard] |
| 9255 | Seeing the goodness of an effect creates the duty to produce it, not the desire [Prichard] |
| 9261 | The 'Ethics' is disappointing, because it fails to try to justify our duties [Prichard] |
| 9262 | The mistake is to think we can prove what can only be seen directly in moral thinking [Prichard] |
| 9260 | Virtues won't generate an obligation, so it isn't a basis for morality [Prichard] |
| 9259 | We feel obligations to overcome our own failings, and these are not relations to other people [Prichard] |
| 9258 | If pain were instrinsically wrong, it would be immoral to inflict it on ourselves [Prichard] |