Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters' and 'Consistency and realism (with 1972 note)'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism
We tolerate inconsistency in ethics but not in other beliefs (which reflect an independent order) [Williams,B, by Foot]
     Full Idea: Williams argued that we can tolerate inconsistency in moral principles though not in assertions, and that this is explained by the fact that it is the concern of the latter but not of the former to reflect an 'independent order of things'.
     From: report of Bernard Williams (Consistency and realism (with 1972 note) [1966]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma p.37
     A reaction: Put like this, Williams seems to beg the question, which is whether there is an independent moral order to things. There seems to be an easy answer, which is that we are only intolerant of inconsistency when we are confident about it.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume]
     Full Idea: Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind.
     From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1740)
     A reaction: Very revealing about the origin of the is/ought idea, but this is an assertion rather than an argument. Most Greeks treat value as a primary quality of things (e.g. life, harmony, beauty, health).