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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'reports of career' and 'Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics'

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4 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / e. Good as knowledge
3017 The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance [Socrates, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: There is only one good, namely knowledge, and there is only one evil, namely ignorance.
     From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.4.14
     A reaction: Ignorance of how to commit evil sounds quite good.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism
3785 You can't separate acts from the people performing them [Glover]
     Full Idea: A mistake of consequentialists is to treat actions as though they can somehow be isolated from the people performing them.
     From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five)
     A reaction: I agree. The weather produces consequences. Morality is about people. Crocodiles, for example, are exempt.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / h. Good as benefit
3786 Aggression in defence may be beneficial but morally corrupting [Glover]
     Full Idea: Forming the intention to use nuclear retaliation if attacked may both be the best way to avoid the catastrophe of nuclear war and at the same time be morally corrupting.
     From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five)
     A reaction: A famous moment in 2017 when Jeremy Corbyn refused to say he would be willing to use the weapons, if elected. It would be hard to sustain a determination to do it, and then reject it at the crucial moment.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia
1646 Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos]
     Full Idea: Socrates' true place in the development of Greek thought is that he is the first to establish the eudaimonist foundation of ethical theory, which became the foundation of the schools which sprang up around him.
     From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.10
     A reaction: I suspect that he was the first to fully articulate a widely held Greek belief. The only ethical question that they asked was about the nature of a good human life.