Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Eudemian Ethics' and 'Human, All Too Human'

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6 ideas

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
18230 No one would choose life just for activities not done for their own sake [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If we put together all the things that are ....not done or undergone for their own sake ...no one would choose, in order to have them, to be alive rather than not.
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1215), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Finality'
     A reaction: Debatable. Roughly his question is whether you would rather be dead than be a slave, since slaves work for means, but have no ends. Aristotle would rather die, but those who surrendered in ancient battles preferred slavery.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / b. Successful function
23909 Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There is intrinsic use of a possession, such as of a shoe or a cloak, and its coincidental use - not of course when using a shoe as a weight, but as, for example, selling it or hiring it out (for then a shoe is used as a shoe).
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1231b37)
     A reaction: This seems to need a third label, for using the shoe as a weight. 'Inessential use' perhaps, since the intrinsic use points towards the essential nature or function of the shoe.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health
5870 Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is not true that everything that there is seeks some single good: each thing has an inclination for its own good, the eye for sight, the body for health, and so on.
     From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1218a30)
     A reaction: Aristotle's pluralism. Elsewhere this pluralism arises from his function argument - that the good of each thing is the successful fulfilment of its function, which is different for each thing. This is basic to virtue theory, and has my approval.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
14831 No one has ever done anything that was entirely for other people [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Never has a man done anything that was only for others and without any personal motivation. …How could the ego act without ego?
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 133)
     A reaction: This is only a denial of the purest of 'pure' altruism. It is hard to imagine anyone performing an altruistic action which permanently shamed the reputationof its performer - though it might be possible in a nicely contrived fiction.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
14855 Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to be loved and respected by the same person. For the man who respects another acknowledges his power; his condition is one of awe. But love acknowledges no power, nothing that separates, differentiates, ranks higher or subordinates.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 603)
     A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'respect', but this looks like nonsense. Do we 'respect' someone because they point a gun at us? I would say love and respect are inseparable.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
14815 We get enormous pleasure from tales of noble actions [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: How much pleasure we get from morality! Just think what a river of agreeable tears has flowed at tales of noble, generous actions.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 091)
     A reaction: How can anyone not adore Nietzsche? The pleasure of a noble deed is the most piercing and the deepest pleasure known to us. It isn't 'just' a pleasure.