display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
4269 | An emotion is a motive which is also a feeling [Scruton] |
Full Idea: An emotion is a motive which is also a feeling. | |
From: Roger Scruton (Animal Rights and Wrongs [1996], p.17) | |
A reaction: What is a motive without feeling? A universalised judgment, perhaps. Which comes first, the motivation or the feeling? |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
4270 | Do we use reason to distinguish people from animals, or use that difference to define reason? [Scruton] |
Full Idea: The difficulty of defining reason suggests that while pretending to use it to define the difference between humans and animals, they are actually using that difference to define reason. | |
From: Roger Scruton (Animal Rights and Wrongs [1996], p.19) | |
A reaction: Too pessimistic. We are perfectly capable of saying there is no significant difference between us and an alien. We have obvious abilities, which we can partly specify. |