Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Against Liberalism' and 'Emergent Evolution'

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4 ideas

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111
     A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 4. Responsibility for Actions
Liberals say we are only responsible for fully autonomous actions [Kekes]
     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.
Collective responsibility conflicts with responsibility's requirement of authonomy [Kekes]
     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).
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.