| 1997 | Against Liberalism |
| Pref | p.-3 | 23079 | Liberal justice ignores desert, which is the essence of justice |
| Full Idea: The liberal conception of justice …excludes the essence of justice: desert. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: Certainly our normal concept of justice includes such thoughts as 'serves him right'. The trouble with the Kekes view is his society is continually morally judging people, and most people's grounds for that are fairly irrational. It's why we have courts. |
| 01,2 | p.5 | 23083 | Liberal welfare focuses on need rather than desert |
| Full Idea: In welfare legislation, liberals concentrate on what people need rather than on what they deserve. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01,2) | |||
| A reaction: He makes assessing what people 'deserve' sound easy. Do drowning people deserve to be rescued? Do billionaires deserve their wealth (which is not the same as 'did they acquire it legally')? What do rude people deserve? |
| 01.2 | p.5 | 23082 | Liberal distribution cares more about recipients than donors |
| Full Idea: Liberal distribution cares more about the rights of the recipients than the rights of the donors. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |||
| A reaction: Even if you are very left wing indeed, this is an important point. A society dominated by a powerful Robin Hood (steal from the rich, for the poor) is quite likely to end in civil war. But should society allow huge individual wealths to accumulate? |
| 01.2 | p.5 | 23081 | Liberal basics are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice - for autonomy |
| Full Idea: The basic liberal values are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice. What makes them basically valuable is that they enable individuals to live autonomously. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |||
| A reaction: Helpful. Kekes identifies respect for autonomy as the single value which unites all liberal doctrines (and he traces it back to Kant). |
| 01.4 | p.14 | 23084 | Are egalitarians too coercive, or not egalitarian enough, or lax over morality? |
| Full Idea: Egalitarian liberalism is criticised by classical [freedom] liberals for its coercive redistribution, by socialist liberals for not being egalitarian enough, and by conservative liberals for abandoning moral standards in the guise of neutrality. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.4) | |||
| A reaction: Income tax is 'coercive' distribution, but it is done with general consent in most liberal democracies. An interesting line between the needs of the state and the needs of its most needy citizens. |
| 01.5 | p.15 | 23085 | The key liberal values are explained by the one core value, which is autonomy |
| Full Idea: Liberals regard pluralism, freedom, rights, equality and distributive justice as basic …but this particular group of values is explained by the true core of liberalism, the inner citadel for whose protection all the liberal battles are waged: autonomy. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |||
| A reaction: Given that children, soldiers, monks and nuns, and people in old folks homes have very limited autonomy, it is reasonable to query whether it really is so important. I like autonomy if I have external power over my life; not so good when in hospital. |
| 01.5 | p.21 | 23086 | Liberals say we are only responsible for fully autonomous actions |
| Full Idea: The liberal view is that people can be held responsible only for actions that are in their control: actions that reflect the agents' unforced choices, evaluations, and understanding of their significance - that is, autonomous actions. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |||
| A reaction: Kekes, who is a somewhat right wing anti-liberal, thinks people should be mainly held responsible for the consequences, unless they have a very good excuse. |
| 02.1 | p.26 | 23087 | Much human evil is not autonomous, so moral responsibility need not be autonomous |
| Full Idea: If much evil is due to nonautonomous actions, then liberals cannot be right in idenitfying the domain of moral responsibility with the domain of autonomy. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.1) | |||
| A reaction: One might evade this anti-liberal thought by making responsibility directly proportional to degree of autonomy. Then the only counterexample would be genuine immorality that is entirely non-autonomous, but is there such a thing? |
| 02.2 | p.29 | 23088 | Evil is not deviation from the good, any more than good is a deviation from evil |
| Full Idea: There is no more reason to think of evil as deviation from the good than there is to think of the good as deviation from evil. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.2) | |||
| A reaction: This is a political moderate right winger defending the concept of evil as a basic and inescapable component of existence, in contrast to liberals who tend to deny 'pure evil'. |
| 02.4 | p.33 | 23089 | Evil people may not be autonomously aware, if they misjudge the situation |
| Full Idea: Agents who perform evil nonautonomously do not know what they are doing, because they have made a mistake in understanding or evaluating their own conduct. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.4) | |||
| A reaction: So while liberals say that true evil must be autonomous, Kekes says it may result from factual or evaluative error, for which people are also responsible. |
| 02.5 | p.39 | 23090 | Liberals assume people are naturally free, equal, rational, and morally good |
| Full Idea: The view of human nature at the core of the liberal faith is that human beings are by their nature free, equal, rational, and morally good. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |||
| A reaction: These four claims are quite distinct, and should be evaluated separately. I think I'm something of a liberal, but I don't really accept any of them. Hm. I just want all people to have these attributes. |
| 02.5 | p.43 | 23091 | Why do liberals not see a much wider range of values as basic? |
| Full Idea: Why are prosperity, order, civility, peace, a healthy environment, security, happiness, and law-abidingness not as important as those thought of by liberals as basic? | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |||
| A reaction: This presumes that liberals only see a narrow core of values as basic to the structure of the society. Presumably every society should be well disposed towards the nice features listed here. Would their absence wreck the society? |
| 03.2 | p.50 | 23092 | Agents have little control over the capacities needed for liberal autonomy |
| Full Idea: It is important [for liberals] to realise that agents have no control over their possession of the capacities and opportunities on which their autonomy depends. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |||
| A reaction: It can be replied to Kekes that they also have little control over the capacities upon which his prized 'desert' depends. It may be an axiom of all modern political thought that people have less control than we imagine. |
| 03.2 | p.50 | 23093 | Moral and causal responsibility are not clearly distinct |
| Full Idea: Moral and causal responsibility cannot be distinguished as clearly as the liberal strategy requires. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |||
| A reaction: I take assessment to be a two-stage operation. It is usually easy to assign causal responsibility. Moral responsibiity is quite different. Our negligence can make us morally responsible for an event we didn’t cause. |
| 03.3 | p.52 | 23094 | Ought implies can means moral responsibility needs autonomy |
| Full Idea: Ought implies can translates into the claim that only autonomous agents are morally responsible. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |||
| A reaction: Since Kekes identifies autonomy as the key to liberalism, he sees this also as a basic liberal claim (which he rejects). I ought to ring my mother, but my phone is broken (so I ought not to ring my mother?).. |
| 03.3 | p.56 | 23095 | Why should moral responsibility depend on autonomy, rather than social role or experience? |
| Full Idea: Why should moral responsibility be made to depend on autonomy, rather than on intelligence, education, social role, experience, or whatever? | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |||
| A reaction: Social role seems a particularly good one to cite. 'I didn't really understand what I was doing.' 'But it's your job to understand!' |
| 03.3 | p.56 | 23096 | Morality should aim to prevent all evil actions, not just autonomous ones |
| Full Idea: If one main task of morality is to prevent evil, then morality must be concerned with all evil-producing actions, not just autonomous ones. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |||
| A reaction: Hm. Is placing a railing next to a flight of steps a moral action? Possibly. |
| 03.4 | p.61 | 23097 | What matters for morality is the effects of action, not the psychological causes |
| Full Idea: What is crucial to morality are the good and evil effects of human actions, not their psychological causes. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.4) | |||
| A reaction: The context is his attack on the liberal idea that morality only concerns the actions of autonomous agents. Kekes says he is not a full consequentialist. He just urges that consequences be given greater weight. Even Kant must care about that. |
| 03.5 | p.63 | 23098 | Effects show the existence of moral responsibility, and mental states show the degree |
| Full Idea: Psychological states are relevant to the degree of an agent's moral responsibility, while the effects of their actions are relevant to whether the agents are liable to moral responsibility. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |||
| A reaction: He has previously offered a problem case for this, where someone's social role makes them fully responsible whatever their mental state. I still think his distinction is helpful. 1) Whose fault is it, then 2) How far are they to blame? Normal practice. |
| 03.5 | p.68 | 23099 | It is said that if an agent is not autonomous then their evil actions don't reflect on their character |
| Full Idea: Liberals deny the reflexivity of evil, …to prevent the evil consequences of an agent's morally deplorable actions from redounding to their detriment. Evil actions are allowed to reflect on their agents only if the agents cause them autonomously. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |||
| A reaction: A central question of morality is essentialising character. That is, when does an eater of carrots become a carrot-eater? When does a performer of wicked deeds become a wicked person? Never, say many liberals. Wrong, says Kekes. |
| 04 | p.69 | 23100 | Collective responsibility conflicts with responsibility's requirement of authonomy |
| Full Idea: The ascription of collective responsibility is inconsistent with …the belief that people should be held responsible for only their own autonomous actions. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04) | |||
| A reaction: The autonomy would need to be displaced, from the decision to act to the decision of identify with the organisation. But if you invest in an evil group you are responsible for actions you never even knew occurred (never mind autonomy). |
| 04.3 | p.77 | 23101 | Intuitions don't prove things; they just receptivity to interpretations |
| Full Idea: Appeal to intuitions cannot prove or disprove anything. They merely create receptivity to particular interpretations of particular cases. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04.3) | |||
| A reaction: A nice point, but more is needed. A gun to the head can create receptivity. What distinguishes good from bad intuitions? Why are intuitions different from mere whims or hopes? |
| 05.1 | p.89 | 23102 | Liberals are egalitarians, but in varying degrees |
| Full Idea: All liberals are egalitarians, though they may be more or less so. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |||
| A reaction: In the broadest view, this may be the one thing which distinguishes generalised liberals from the rest. To reject it needs a basis for the rejection, and every basis for its flat rejection is anathema to liberals. |
| 05.1 | p.91 | 23103 | Power is meant to be confined to representatives, and subsequent delegation |
| Full Idea: Universal adult suffrage and representative government are intended to give everyone equal initial political power, and assure that delegation is the only legitimate means to acquiring greater power. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |||
| A reaction: The delegation bit is where it all goes wrong. Once you've packed your representative off to the capital, you lose nearly all control over what sort of delegation happens next. It is hard to trust representatives voters have barely met. |
| 05.3 | p.97 | 23105 | It is not deplorable that billionaires have more than millionaires |
| Full Idea: It is certainly not intuitively deplorable that billionaires have more money than millionaires. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.3) | |||
| A reaction: Nice point. His claim is that sufficiency is the important feature, and equality is largely irrelevant. The reality, though, is that the billionaires, unlike the millionaires, could solve the insufficiency problem. |
| 05.4 | p.102 | 23106 | To rectify the undeserved equality, we should give men longer and women shorter lives |
| Full Idea: Redistribution ought to aim to equalise the life expectancy of men and women, by making men have longer and women shorter lives. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.4) | |||
| A reaction: This is a nice satirical counterexample to the Rawlsian claim that 'undeserved inequalities should somehow be compensated for' [Rawls 1971: 100]. See also Kurt Vonnegut's story 'Harrison Bergeron'. |
| 06.3 | p.128 | 23107 | Prosperity is a higher social virtue than justice |
| Full Idea: If social institutions were to have a first virtue, …prosperity would be a much stronger candidate that justice. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |||
| A reaction: Kekes occasionally pays lip service to ecological issues, but this shows he is not serious. Endless economic growth will kill our planet, so it should never be our prime virtue. Also the impplication that you can't be too prosperous is plainly false. |
| 06.3 | p.130 | 23108 | Justice combines consistency and desert; treat likes alike, judging likeness by desert |
| Full Idea: Justice is a combination of consistency and desert. Like cases should be treated alike, and likenesses should be evaluated according to desert. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] He needs to add that at least the desert should be relevant to the events being assessed. Should people not get a fair trial if they are branded as generally 'undeserving'? Hence the case must be judged before the desert is identified. |
| 07.2 | p.145 | 23109 | The veil of ignorance is only needed because people have bad motivations |
| Full Idea: If the darker aspects of human motivation did not exist, there would be no need for Rawls to place his people behind the veil of ignorance. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.2) | |||
| A reaction: All the critics observe that Rawls's blind choosers are nothing like as simple as the mere specks of rationality he seems to imagine. The usual objection is that they are already liberals, but this objection says they are already benevolent. |
| 07.4 | p.158 | 23112 | Liberals ignore contingency, and think people are good and equal, and institutions cause evil |
| Full Idea: Liberals comfortably believe that autonomy minimises contingency, that humans are disposed to the good, that wickedness is due to remediable institutions, and that humans are morally equal because of their autonomy. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.4) | |||
| A reaction: In a nutshell, Kekes thinks liberals are naďve. That institutions cause evil sounds more Marxist than liberal. When individuals become evil, it is reasonable for us to think that this need not have been the case. |
| 08.1 | p.163 | 23113 | Sexual morality doesn't require monogamy, but it needs a group of sensible regulations |
| Full Idea: A moral tradition need not be committed to monogamy, but it must regulate sexual conduct to prevent inbreeding, protect the sexually immature, prohibit some forms of coercion, and assign responsibility for raising children. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.1) | |||
| A reaction: Wise words, I would say. The sexual liberation which arose with the contraceptive pill rather swamped thoughts of this type. These are just sensible responses to the facts of life. |
| 08.4 | p.175 | 23114 | The chief function of the state is to arbitrate between contending visions of the good life |
| Full Idea: The chief function of the state is seen to be to maintain what is referred to as the dialogue or conversation among the contending visions of how life should be lived. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.4) | |||
| A reaction: This is Kekes's defence of 'pluralism'. It is not liberal, because liberal freedom, autonomy and equality is only one of the competing visions of the good life. Almost every state suppresses some such visions. |
| 09.4 | p.194 | 23116 | Citizenship is easier than parenthood |
| Full Idea: It is much easier to be a good citizen than it is to be a good parent. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |||
| A reaction: A nice observation. It is shocking how many people are bad citizens, given the limited demands. I think philosophers have some responsibility for beliefs and values which people bring to their citizenship. Parents need communal support. |
| 09.4 | p.194 | 23117 | Love should be partial, and discriminate in favour of its object |
| Full Idea: Love is personal and partial. It is not love if it does not discriminate in favor of its object. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |||
| A reaction: I agree with that, mainly on the grounds that this is the natural form of human love. Generalised love of mankind seems like a distortion, even if it is well-meaning. |
| 09.4 | p.195 | 23118 | Awareness of others' suffering doesn't create an obligation to help |
| Full Idea: It is a mistaken assumption that knowledge of the sufferings of others creates an obligation to help them. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |||
| A reaction: A nice question is when that knowledge does become an obligation. The obvious criteria are proximity to the suffering, and capacity to relieve it. But then a wealthy person couldn't walk down the street without such obigations. Hm. |
| 09.5 | p.198 | 23119 | Sentimental love distorts its object |
| Full Idea: Love is sentimental if it exaggerates the virtues and minimises the vices of its object. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.5) | |||
| A reaction: Not sure about this. It implies that we should retain a streak of cold evaluative objectivity, even about the people we love most. There is difference between knowing a person's qualities, and the importance we attach to those qualities. Forgive vices! |
| 10.3 | p.206 | 23120 | The problem is basic insufficiency of resources, not their inequality |
| Full Idea: If everyone has sufficient resources, it is not objectionable that some have more than others. What is objectionable is that some do not have enough. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.3) | |||
| A reaction: Reasonable, but there seems to be sharp disagreement between the haves and the have-nots over what counts as 'enough'. In an affluent country, does enough include a car, restaurant dining, and foreign holidays? Or just food and shelter? |
| 10.4 | p.209 | 23121 | It is just a fact that some people are morally better than others |
| Full Idea: It is an obviolus fact that some people are morally better than others and that some are morally worse. | |||
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.4) | |||
| A reaction: This could be conceded, without then asserting that the moral ones are superior, or more deserving. That is a social strategy, rather than a fact. We can challenge the criteria for 'morally better', but we can't deny a rankng once it is agreed. |
| 2010 | The Human Condition |
| Intro | p.4 | 19738 | Values are an attempt to achieve well-being by bringing contingencies under control |
| Full Idea: Our system of values should be understood, among other things, as our attempt to cope with contingencies by making the connection between our well-being and actions less contingent and more within our control. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], Intro) | |||
| A reaction: He gives an account in which every aspect of morality focuses on human well-being. Of course, the values will dictate what constitutes that well-being, as well as good means of attaining it. |
| Intro | p.4 | 20145 | Values help us to control life, by connecting it to what is stable and manageable |
| Full Idea: Values are ...an attempt to cope with contingencies by making the connection between our well-being and actions less contingent and more within our control. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], Intro) | |||
| A reaction: This sounds more like principles than values, since the former tell you what to do, but a value in itself is just a picture of possibilities. |
| 01.2 | p.13 | 20146 | 'Luck' is the unpredictable and inexplicable intersection of causal chains |
| Full Idea: 'Luck' is loose shorthand. It stands for various causal chains that intersect and whose intersection we can neither predict nor explain, because we lack the relevant knowledge. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 01.2) | |||
| A reaction: Aristotle's example is a chance meeting in the market place. The point about 'intersection' seems good, since luck doesn't seem to arise for an event in isolation. |
| 01.5 | p.22 | 20148 | Equal distribution is no good in a shortage, because there might be no one satisfied |
| Full Idea: It is useless to distribute insufficient resources equally, because the equal distribution of insufficient resources may result in the even worse outcome that no one's reasonable expectations are met. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 01.5) | |||
| A reaction: He gives a shortage of oxygen tanks as a persuasive example, but that is hardly typical of the sorts of things that we normally want to distribute. |
| 02.4 | p.43 | 20149 | To control our actions better, make them result from our attitudes, not from circumstances |
| Full Idea: We increase our control by making our actions more and more the effects of our attitudes, and less and less the effects of external forces acting on us independently of our attitudes. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 02.4) | |||
| A reaction: He says that the attitudes should be focused on our well-being. Attitudes may also, however, serve some exernal ideal, such as altruism or patriotism. He has built a case for 'control' being a much more important value than 'free will'. |
| 03.1 | p.50 | 20150 | There are far more values than we can pursue, so they are optional possibilities |
| Full Idea: A significant feature of our system of values is that it provides many more values than we could pursue. ...We encounter values as possibilities, and we must accept or reject them. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.1) | |||
| A reaction: This immediately invites the lovely question of what values you are going to invoke when you discriminate among the values available in your culture. Nietzsche says it comes down to 'taste'. |
| 03.2 | p.53 | 20151 | Our attitudes include what possibilities we value, and also what is allowable, and unthinkable |
| Full Idea: The beliefs, emotions, motives, and desires that form our attitudes ...include not only what possibilities we value, but also the limits we should not transgress. ...The strongest limit is what I call 'the unthinkable'. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.2) | |||
| A reaction: Another chance to link to my favourite idea from Democritus! Ideally we want a theory which shows how a vision of the possibilities immediately points to the limits, and to what is unthinkable. |
| 03.3 | p.57 | 20152 | Unconditional commitments are our most basic convictions, saying what must never be done |
| Full Idea: Unconditional commitments are the most basic convictions we have. They tell us what we must not do no matter what, what we regard as outrageous, horrible, beyond the pale, or, in religious language, as sacrilegious. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.3) | |||
| A reaction: The Aztecs should have made rather different unconditional commitments from the ones they ended up with. How do you persuade someone to make such an unconditional commitment. Abortion seems to involve huge clashes here. |
| 03.3 | p.61 | 20153 | Doing the unthinkable damages ourselves, so it is more basic than any value |
| Full Idea: Doing the unthinkable causes deep, often irreparable, damage to our sense of ourselves. ...That is why the unthinkable indicates a more basic commitment than what we have to any value. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.3) | |||
| A reaction: Kekes makes the interesting claim that what is unthinkable is so basic that it doesn't even count as a value - it is more like a fact of your own nature, which is prior to your values. Not sure about that. |
| 04 Intro | p.67 | 20154 | Control is the key to well-being |
| Full Idea: Increasing control is the key to our well-being. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04 Intro) | |||
| A reaction: This slogan emerges from a sustained discussion. Hitler and Stalin increased control rather impressively, so we obviously need a bit more than this to get proper well-being. There's also something to be said for going with the flow. |
| 04.4 | p.85 | 20155 | Society is alienating if it lacks our values, and its values repel us |
| Full Idea: We feel estranged from our society if the values we prize are not available, and if we do not want to live by the available values. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04.4) | |||
| A reaction: There are two pictures here, for a monolithic culture, and for pluralism. For example, the values of Islam are fairly available in the Christian/atheist UK - but not sharia law. Pluralism can embrace a huge array of moderate values, but not extremes? |
| 04.5 | p.86 | 20156 | We are bound to regret some values we never aspired to |
| Full Idea: We inevitably feel regret for the many values we could have, but did not, try to realize. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04.5) | |||
| A reaction: He's obviously talking about working harder at our projects. |
| 05 Intro | p.88 | 20158 | Innumerable values arise for us, from our humanity, our culture, and our individuality |
| Full Idea: There is an irreducible plurality of values that follow from the universal requirements of human well-being, from a shared cultural identity, and from individual conceptions of well-being. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05 Intro) | |||
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful division. It seems reasonably obvious, but I have not encountered it elsewhere. It is an obvious foundation for international negotiations. We can criticise another culture by appealing to human values. |
| 05 Intro | p.88 | 20157 | Well-being needs correct attitudes and well-ordered commitments to local values |
| Full Idea: A reasonable conception of well-being requires mistake-free attitudes and well-ordered commitments to some values selected from our society's system of values. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05 Intro) | |||
| A reaction: This summarises where he has got to so far. |
| 05.2 | p.91 | 20159 | Cultural values are interpretations of humanity, conduct, institutions, and evaluations |
| Full Idea: I distinguish four types of cultural values likely to be found in a particular society: interpretations of human values; forms of expression and conduct; institutions and practices within them; and modes of evaluation. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05.2) | |||
| A reaction: He proceeds to enlarge on these four. This sub-divides the second of his three main areas of value. I like philosophers who do that sort of thing. It gives you the reassuring feeling that you can break a problem down into elements we understand.... |
| 05.5 | p.113 | 20161 | The big value problems are evil (humanity), disenchantment (cultures), and boredom (individuals) |
| Full Idea: The major problem for the human dimension of values is the prevalence of evil; for the cultural dimension it is widespread disenchantment; and for the personal dimension it is pervasive boredom. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05.5) | |||
| A reaction: Boldly simple claims, but quite persuasive. Presumably it is the evil in human beings, rather than natural evil (like earthquakes) that is the problem. Disenchantment must come through alienation from social values. Powerlessness, rather than boredom? |
| 06.3 | p.122 | 20162 | Evil isn't explained by nature, by monsters, by uncharacteristic actions, or by society |
| Full Idea: Four inadequate explanations of human evil attribute it to natural causes, moral monsters, uncharacteristic actions, and corrupting social conditions. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.3) | |||
| A reaction: He is addressing the 'secular problem of evil', which arises if you assume that human beings are essentially good, and then look around you. He says evil explains corrupting social conditions, so we can't be circular about it. |
| 06.4 | p.131 | 20164 | The ideal of an ideology is embodied in a text, a role model, a law of history, a dream of the past... |
| Full Idea: The ideal in an ideology may be set down in a sacred text, exemplified in an exceptional life, dictated by laws of history, sociology, or psychology, located in a past uncorrupted idyllic past, or in a future Utopia of perfected human nature, and so on. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.4) | |||
| A reaction: A bit grumpy, but a fair observation about an awful lot of slightly mad social endeavours. |
| 06.4 | p.131 | 20163 | Ideologies have beliefs about reality, ideals, a gap with actuality, and a program |
| Full Idea: Ideologies have a set of beliefs about the world, an ideal of life, an explanation of the gap between the ideal and actuality, and a program for closing the gap. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.4) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] Kekes emerges as a bit right of centre in his politics. He clearly despises such ideologies, yet his book is an optimistic program for correcting things. Maybe the enemy is dogmatic ideologies. Kekes gives an undogmatic account of values. |
| 06.5 | p.136 | 20165 | Reason and morality do not coincide; immorality can be reasonable, with an ideology |
| Full Idea: A central assumption of Western moral thought is mistaken: the requirements of reason and morality do not coincide. Immorality need not be unreasonable. ...Malevolent motives in combination with ideologies supply reasons for doing evil. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.5) | |||
| A reaction: I presume that Kant would say the malevolent motives are irrational. If I perform an evil act because someone gives me a stupid reason for doing it, I am not thereby rational because I am acting for a reason. Wrong. |
| 07.2 | p.148 | 20169 | An action may be intended under one description, but not under another |
| Full Idea: People can usually be described as intending an action under one description, but not under another. ...Consequently the same action may reasonably be said to be both intentional and unintentional. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 07.2) | |||
| A reaction: This is the terrorist/freedom fighter problem. The problem seems to arise with long-term intentions, rather than immediate ones. Maybe it is the significance of the intention, rather than the intention itself? |
| 07.4 | p.159 | 20170 | Responsibility is unprovoked foreseeable harm, against society, arising from vicious character |
| Full Idea: Full responsibility is when evil-doers can fully foresee the harm that results, their victims have not provoked it, it violates the requirements of physical protection in a society, the action reflects character, and it is viciously motivated. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 07.4) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] The point of this is to omit any reference to an explicit intention to perform an evil act. The Nazi Franz Stangl claimed that he never intended evil, but Kekes says that if true he is innocent, but the above definition makes him guilty. |
| 08.5 | p.182 | 20171 | Practical reason is not universal and impersonal, because it depends on what success is |
| Full Idea: The assumption that the requirements of reason are universal and impersonal ...is false of practical reason that aims at successful action. Whether a belief is true depends on the facts. Whether an action is successful depends on what success consists in. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 08.5) | |||
| A reaction: Kekes is trying to eliminate the Kantian idea that reason can lead us to the 'right' thing to do. He rightly points to the complex demands of human, cultural and personal values. |
| 09.1 | p.187 | 20172 | Boredom destroys our ability to evaluate |
| Full Idea: The threat of boredom is the dissolution of the evaluative dimension of our life. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.1) | |||
| A reaction: This seems right. If nothing is interesting, then there is no scale of values left, except perhaps 'of possible interest to other people'. |
| 09.1 | p.188 | 20173 | Boredom is apathy and restlessness, yearning for something interesting |
| Full Idea: Boredom combines apathy and restlessness. ...We crave stimulation, worthwhile activities, and objects that engage our interest. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.1) |
| 09.4 | p.201 | 20174 | Relativists say all values are relative; pluralists concede much of that, but not 'human' values |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between pluralism and relativism about values. Pluralists accept that the validity of cultural and personal values is relative to societies and individuals. But they also hold that human values are objectively valid. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.4) | |||
| A reaction: This is a very attractive response to global moral relativism. I see a problem in the neat division into three distinct forms of value. Each of the three sets of values ought to be sensitive to the other two areas. Humans are cultured individuals. |
| 10.4 | p.222 | 20175 | If morality has to be rational, then moral conflicts need us to be irrational and immoral |
| Full Idea: The absurdity follows [from Kant's categorical imperative] that in the case of moral conflicts reason and morality require us to act irrationally and immorally. | |||
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 10.4) | |||
| A reaction: We can't pick one from two equals if we must have a reason for the preference, but that does not make it 'irrational' to choose one of them, when it doesn't matter which one is chosen. Taking one of the cheese sandwiches is not irrational. |