Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Social Contract (tr Cress)', 'Modal and Anti-Luck Epistemology' and 'Parerga and Paralipomena'

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility

7235	Without freedom of will actions lack moral significance [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: If you take away all freedom of the will, you strip a man's actions of all moral significance.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4)
	A reaction: Rousseau is (in the context) guilty of the basic error of confusing freedom of action with freedom of the will. If the will has scope to act, it has freedom of action; if the will is not contrained in its decision by prior causes, it has freedom of will.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

21483	Man is essentially a dreadful wild animal [Schopenhauer]
	Full Idea: Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal.
	From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:114)
	A reaction: As an example he cites the slave owners in the United States.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure

21466	Pleasure is weaker, and pain stronger, than we expect [Schopenhauer]
	Full Idea: As a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable, pain much more painful than we expected.
	From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:149)
	A reaction: Never go on holiday with Schopenhauer. This is more accurate about pain, I think.