display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
Full Idea: I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506e) | |
A reaction: This was a source of some humour in the ancient world (in the theatre). Goodness is like some distant glow, which can never be approached in order to learn of its source. |
20216 | Modern moral theory concerns settling conflicts, rather than human fulfilment [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Modern ethics generally considers morality much less a system for fulfilling human nature than a set of principles for dealing with individuals in conflict. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 7) | |
A reaction: Historically I associate this move with Hugo Grotius around 1620. He was a great legalist, and eudaimonist virtue ethics gradually turned into jurisprudence. The Enlightenment sought rules for resolving dilemmas. Liberalism makes fulfilment private. |
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? |
1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
Full Idea: Plato points to the truth about the highest good when he says that it cannot be expressed in words, but rather comes from familiarity - like a flash from the blue, imprinting itself upon the soul. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Celsus - On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) VII | |
A reaction: It is reasonable to be drawn to something inexpressible, such as an appealing piece of music, but not good philosophy to build a system around something so obscure. |
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. |
4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: For Plato, the problem of making the ethical into a force was the problem of making society embody rational justification, and that problem could only have an authoritarian solution. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Plato's citizens were largely illiterate. We can be more carrot and less stick. |
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. |