Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue' and 'What is Critique?'

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6 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / a. Preconditions for ethics
21415 Duty is impossible without prior moral feeling, conscience, love and self-respect [Kant]
     Full Idea: Moral feeling, conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for oneself (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, because they lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 399 Intro XII)
     A reaction: A bit of a revelation, this one, because I thought the only precondition for Kantian morality was rationality. Turns out that he agrees with Aristotle (Idea 46) that you can't started in morality if your heart isn't in the right place.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
20838 Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The order and reason of fate set in motion the general types and starting points of the causes, but each person's own will [or decisions] and the character of his mind govern the impulses of our thoughts and minds and our very actions.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.11
     A reaction: So if you try and fail it was fate, but if you try and succeed it was you?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
20813 Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The human being was born for the sake of contemplating and imitating the cosmos.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37
     A reaction: [This seems to be an idea of Chrysippus] Remind me how to imitate the cosmos. Presumably this is living according to nature, but that becomes more obscure when express like this.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
21409 Moral principles do not involve feelings [Kant]
     Full Idea: No moral principle is based on any feeling whatsoever.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 376 Pref)
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
3045 Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.66
     A reaction: cf Idea 3024. Stoics thought that nature is intrinsically rational, and therein lies its justice. 'King Lear' enacts this drama about whether nature is just.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / k. Ethics from nature
20774 Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: What am I to take as the principle of appropriate action and raw material for virtue if I give up nature and what is according to nature?
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e
     A reaction: 'Nature' is awfully vague as a guideline, even when we are told nature is rational. I can only make sense of it as 'human nature', which is more Aristotelian than stoic. 'Go with the flow' and 'lay the cards you are dealt' might capture it.