display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 3954 | Immorality is not in the action, but in the deviation of the will from moral law [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: Sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion. | |
| From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.227) | |
| A reaction: A Kantian view (that the only good thing is a good will). It is a very empiricist (and anti-Greek) view to deny that actions have any intrinsic value. |
| 22450 | If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: If some societies with divergent moral systems merely confront each other, having no use for the assertion that their own systems are true and the others false except to mark the system to which they adhere, then relativism is a true theory of morality. | |
| From: report of Bernard Williams (The Truth in Relativism [1974]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Relativism p.3 | |
| A reaction: 'Having no use for' an assertion is not the same as the assertion being impossible. Some liberal cultures refuse to criticise others because their highest value is tolerance, even when the target culture wholly contradicts the critics' other values. |