Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Putnam's Paradox' and 'From Metaphysics to Ethics'

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2 ideas

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 5. Action Dilemmas / c. Omissions
The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: He who makes moral progress to the highest degree performs all the appropriate actions in all circumstances, and omits none.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Sophocles - Sophocles' Electra 4.39.22
     A reaction: Hence concerns about omission as well as commission in the practice of ethics can be seen in the light of character and virtue. The world is fully of nice people who act well, but don't do so well on omissions. Car drivers, for example.
Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson]
     Full Idea: We have, it seems to me, currently no clear sense of the place and rationale of the distinction between doing and allowing in folk morality.
     From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Does this mean that philosophers should endeavour to appear on television in order to improve folk morality, so that Jackson, back at the ranch, can then infer the meanings of moral terms from the new improved version?