Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'reports of career' and 'Interview with Philippa Foot'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

4 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / d. Biological ethics
23431 Human defects are just like plant or animal defects [Foot]
     Full Idea: We describe defects in human beings in the same way as we do defects in plants and animals. …You cannot talk about a river as being defective.
     From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33)
     A reaction: This is a much clearer commitment to naturalistic ethics than I have found in her more academic writings. My opinion of Foot (which was already high) went up when I read this interview. …She says vice is a defect of the will.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
5070 Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates]
     Full Idea: Socrates' moral philosophy was essentially conservative. He assumed that the principles the Athenians honoured were true and natural, so there was little possibility of conflict between nature and convention in his thinking.
     From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.8
     A reaction: Taylor contrasts Socrates with Callicles, who claims that conventions oppose nature. This fits with Nietzsche's discontent with Socrates, as the person who endorses conventional good and evil, thus constraining the possibilities of human nature.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / k. Ethics from nature
23433 Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot]
     Full Idea: A plant needs strong roots in the same way human beings need courage.
     From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33)
     A reaction: I'm not quite convince by the analogy, but I strongly agree with her basic approach.
23432 Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot]
     Full Idea: There are concepts which apply only to living things, considered in their own right, which would include function, welfare, flourishing, interests and the good of something.
     From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33)
     A reaction: This is a very Aristotelian view, with which I entirely agree. The central concept is function.