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2 ideas
| 20202 | Motives involve desires, but also how the desires connect to our aims [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A motive does have an aspect of desire, but it includes something about why a state of affairs is desired, and that includes something about the way my emotions are tied to my aim. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.6) | |
| A reaction: It is standard usage that a 'motive' involves some movement towards achieving the desire, and not merely having the desire. I'd quite like to stand on top of Everest, but have absolutely no motivation to try to achieve it. |
| 20869 | 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. |