| 6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: To keep faith and perform covenants is that which natural justice obligeth to absolutely. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of an absolute moral intuition, but one which can clearly be challenged. Covenants (contracts) wouldn't work unless everyone showed intense commitment to keeping them, even beyond the grave, and we all benefit from good contracts. |
| 24085 | For absolute morality a goal for mankind is needed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I deny absolute morality because I do not know an absolute goal of mankind. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 11[037]) | |
| A reaction: Christianity dreams of union of souls with God (clustering around God like goldfish to food, according to Dante). That is an absolute goal, justifying an absolute morality. If Aristotelians could identify human nature, its flourishing might be absolute. |
| 18676 | We should ask what we would judge to be good if it existed in absolute isolation [Moore,GE] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary to consider what things are such that, if they existed by themselves, in absolute isolation, we should yet judge their existence to be good. | |
| From: G.E. Moore (Principia Ethica [1903], §112) | |
| A reaction: This is known as the 'isolation test'. The test has an instant appeal, but looks a bit odd after a little thought. The value of most things drains out of them if they are totally isolated. The MS of the Goldberg Variations floating in outer space? |
| 5918 | The thing is intrinsically good if it would be good when nothing else existed [Ross] |
| Full Idea: By calling a thing intrinsically good we mean that it would be good even if nothing else existed. | |
| From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV) | |
| A reaction: This dramatic image (the Mona Lisa alone in vacancy) raises grave doubts about whether there is very much that could qualify for 'intrinsic value'. I even doubt the value of the MS of the Goldberg Variations, if nothing else exists. |
| 5930 | All things being equal, we all prefer the virtuous to be happy, not the vicious [Ross] |
| Full Idea: Everyone would prefer the second of two universes, if each had equal vice and virtue, and each had equal pleasure and pain, but in the first the virtuous were miserable and the vicious happy, while in the second universe it was the opposite. | |
| From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §V) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very good example of an intuition which it is hard to resist. Would some vile Mafia boss really want heaven to be full of murderers, while good-hearted and kind people all went to hell? |
| 2942 | The sense of the world must lie outside the world [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The sense of the world must lie outside the world. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 6.41) | |
| A reaction: Since I don't believe that anything 'lies outside the world' I can't make sense of this. He implies that the Self lies outside of the world (to the point of solipsism), so I suppose that's it. |
| 22447 | Saying something 'just is' right or wrong creates an illusion of fact and objectivity [Foot] |
| Full Idea: When we say that something 'just is' right or wrong we want to give the impression of some kind of fact or authority standing behind our words, ...maintaining the trappings of objectivity though the substance is not there. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Morality and Art [1972], p.9) | |
| A reaction: Foot favours the idea that such a claim must depend on reasons, and that the reasons arise out of actual living. She's right. |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A purely objective view has no way of knowing whether anything has any value, but actually its data include the appearance of value to individuals with particular perspectives, including oneself. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that a very objective assessment of someone's health is an obvious revelation of value, irrespective of anyone's particular perspective. |
| 18672 | Values from reasons has the 'wrong kind of reason' problem - admiration arising from fear [Orsi] |
| Full Idea: A support for the fittingness account (against the buck-passing reasons account) is the 'wrong kind of reasons' problem. There are many reasons for positive attitudes towards things which are not good. We might admire a demon because he threatens torture. | |
| From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I like the Buck-Passing view, but was never going to claim that all reasons for positive attitudes bestow value. I only think that there is no value without a reason |