display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 20850 | 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. |
| 23437 | Practical reason is goodness in choosing actions [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Practical rationality is goodness in respect of reason for actions, just as rationality of thinking is goodness in respect of beliefs. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.35) | |
| A reaction: It is very Greek to think that rationality involves goodness. There seems to be a purely instrumental form of practical reason that just gets from A to B, as when giving accurate street directions to someone. |
| 23436 | It is an odd Humean view to think a reason to act must always involve caring [Foot] |
| Full Idea: One would need a very special, very Humean, view about reasons for actions to think a man doesn't have a reason unless he cares. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.34-5) | |
| A reaction: She says she used to believe this, but was wrong. It is hard to imagine acting for reasons if they don't care about anything at all (even that it's their job). But then people just do care about things. |
| 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. |