Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Prcis of 'Ruling Passions'' and 'The Structure of Science'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

5 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
11911 Some philosophers always want more from morality; for others, nature is enough [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: The history of moral theory is largely a history of battles between people who want more (truth, absolutes...) - Plato, Locke, Cudworth, Kant, Nagel - and people content with what we have (nature) - Aristotle, Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume, Stevenson.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Précis of 'Ruling Passions' [2002], p.133)
     A reaction: [Thanks to Neil Sinclair for this one] As a devotee of Aristotle, I like this. I'm always impressed, though, by people who go the extra mile in morality, because they are in the grips of purer and loftier ideals than I am. They also turn into monsters!
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 / 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.