display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
8066 | Butler exalts conscience, but it may be horribly misleading [Anscombe on Butler] |
Full Idea: Butler exalts conscience, but appears ignorant that a man's conscience may tell him to do the vilest things. | |
From: comment on Joseph Butler (Fifteen Sermons [1726]) by G.E.M. Anscombe - Modern Moral Philosophy p.176 | |
A reaction: That would appear to be the end of conscience. To make conscience work, it must have a huge authority to back it, and also a fairly infallible means of knowing what it truly says, and that an impostor hasn't replaced it (e.g. via a bad upbringing). |
7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |