display all the ideas for this combination of texts
21 ideas
| 23093 | Moral and causal responsibility are not clearly distinct [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Moral and causal responsibility cannot be distinguished as clearly as the liberal strategy requires. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: I take assessment to be a two-stage operation. It is usually easy to assign causal responsibility. Moral responsibiity is quite different. Our negligence can make us morally responsible for an event we didn’t cause. |
| 23096 | Morality should aim to prevent all evil actions, not just autonomous ones [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If one main task of morality is to prevent evil, then morality must be concerned with all evil-producing actions, not just autonomous ones. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Is placing a railing next to a flight of steps a moral action? Possibly. |
| 23087 | Much human evil is not autonomous, so moral responsibility need not be autonomous [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If much evil is due to nonautonomous actions, then liberals cannot be right in idenitfying the domain of moral responsibility with the domain of autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: One might evade this anti-liberal thought by making responsibility directly proportional to degree of autonomy. Then the only counterexample would be genuine immorality that is entirely non-autonomous, but is there such a thing? |
| 23098 | Effects show the existence of moral responsibility, and mental states show the degree [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Psychological states are relevant to the degree of an agent's moral responsibility, while the effects of their actions are relevant to whether the agents are liable to moral responsibility. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: He has previously offered a problem case for this, where someone's social role makes them fully responsible whatever their mental state. I still think his distinction is helpful. 1) Whose fault is it, then 2) How far are they to blame? Normal practice. |
| 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? |
| 23089 | Evil people may not be autonomously aware, if they misjudge the situation [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Agents who perform evil nonautonomously do not know what they are doing, because they have made a mistake in understanding or evaluating their own conduct. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: So while liberals say that true evil must be autonomous, Kekes says it may result from factual or evaluative error, for which people are also responsible. |
| 23094 | Ought implies can means moral responsibility needs autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Ought implies can translates into the claim that only autonomous agents are morally responsible. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Since Kekes identifies autonomy as the key to liberalism, he sees this also as a basic liberal claim (which he rejects). I ought to ring my mother, but my phone is broken (so I ought not to ring my mother?).. |
| 23095 | Why should moral responsibility depend on autonomy, rather than social role or experience? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Why should moral responsibility be made to depend on autonomy, rather than on intelligence, education, social role, experience, or whatever? | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Social role seems a particularly good one to cite. 'I didn't really understand what I was doing.' 'But it's your job to understand!' |
| 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. |
| 23090 | Liberals assume people are naturally free, equal, rational, and morally good [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The view of human nature at the core of the liberal faith is that human beings are by their nature free, equal, rational, and morally good. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: These four claims are quite distinct, and should be evaluated separately. I think I'm something of a liberal, but I don't really accept any of them. Hm. I just want all people to have these attributes. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20864 | 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. |
| 23117 | Love should be partial, and discriminate in favour of its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is personal and partial. It is not love if it does not discriminate in favor of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: I agree with that, mainly on the grounds that this is the natural form of human love. Generalised love of mankind seems like a distortion, even if it is well-meaning. |
| 23119 | Sentimental love distorts its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is sentimental if it exaggerates the virtues and minimises the vices of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.5) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. It implies that we should retain a streak of cold evaluative objectivity, even about the people we love most. There is difference between knowing a person's qualities, and the importance we attach to those qualities. Forgive vices! |
| 23088 | Evil is not deviation from the good, any more than good is a deviation from evil [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: There is no more reason to think of evil as deviation from the good than there is to think of the good as deviation from evil. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a political moderate right winger defending the concept of evil as a basic and inescapable component of existence, in contrast to liberals who tend to deny 'pure evil'. |
| 5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d | |
| A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth). |
| 1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60 | |
| A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though. |
| 5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean. |
| 23097 | What matters for morality is the effects of action, not the psychological causes [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: What is crucial to morality are the good and evil effects of human actions, not their psychological causes. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: The context is his attack on the liberal idea that morality only concerns the actions of autonomous agents. Kekes says he is not a full consequentialist. He just urges that consequences be given greater weight. Even Kant must care about that. |
| 20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103 | |
| A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd. |