more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
The history of moral theory is largely a history of battles between people who want more (truth, absolutes...) - Plato, Locke, Cudworth, Kant, Nagel - and people content with what we have (nature) - Aristotle, Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume, Stevenson.
Gist of Idea
Some philosophers always want more from morality; for others, nature is enough
Source
Simon Blackburn (Précis of 'Ruling Passions' [2002], p.133)
Book Ref
Mackie,Penelope: 'How Things Might Have Been' [OUP 2006], p.133
A Reaction
[Thanks to Neil Sinclair for this one] As a devotee of Aristotle, I like this. I'm always impressed, though, by people who go the extra mile in morality, because they are in the grips of purer and loftier ideals than I am. They also turn into monsters!
| 14629 | If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn] |
| 14529 | If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
| 2864 | The main objection to intuitionism in ethics is that intuition is a disguise for prejudice or emotion [Blackburn] |
| 2865 | Critics of prescriptivism observe that it is consistent to accept an ethical verdict but refuse to be bound by it [Blackburn] |
| 2866 | A true belief might be based on a generally reliable process that failed on this occasion [Blackburn] |
| 6451 | Visual sense data are an inner picture show which represents the world [Blackburn] |
| 11911 | Some philosophers always want more from morality; for others, nature is enough [Blackburn] |
| 23223 | The word 'respect' ranges from mere non-interference to the highest levels of reverence [Blackburn] |
| 23996 | Akrasia is intelligible in hindsight, when we revisit our previous emotions [Blackburn] |
| 19284 | Asserting a necessity just expresses our inability to imagine it is false [Blackburn] |