Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Treatise of Human Nature, Appendix' and 'The Mind and the Soul'

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2 ideas

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The goal of life is to live in agreement, which is according to experience of the things which happen by nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a
     A reaction: Cleanthes added 'with nature' to Zeno's slogan, and Chyrisppus added this variation. At least it gives you some idea of what the consistent rational principle should be. You still have to assess which aspects of nature should influence us.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume]
     Full Idea: It may be affirm'd, that there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], p.481), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 9.4
     A reaction: Hume says this is for the best. I can't imagine spontaneous love of human beings we have never met. It takes the teachings of some sort of doctrine - religious or political - to produce such an attitude. I see it as a distortion of love. A hijacking.