Ideas from 'The Human Condition' by John Kekes [2010], by Theme Structure

[found in 'The Human Condition' by Kekes,John [OUP 2010,978-0-19-958888-6]].

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10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance
'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.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
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?
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 2. Acting on Beliefs / a. Acting on beliefs
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'.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / c. Purpose of ethics
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.
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.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
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.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
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.
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.
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.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
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.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
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'.
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.
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.
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....
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?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
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.
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.
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.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / j. Evil
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.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
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.
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.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom
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'.
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)
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / c. A unified people
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?
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
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.
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.
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 4. Economic equality
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.