Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Authority and the Individual' and 'Freedom and Reason'

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
We divide mankind into friend and foe, and cooperate with one and compete with the other [Russell]
     Full Idea: Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes - friends, towards whom we have a morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1)
     A reaction: Interesting, because I have though of cooperation and competition as intrinsic features of people, internal to their nature, but this idea observes that it is more external, as two responses to two sharply distinct aspects of experience.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
     Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9
     A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement?
Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
     Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191
     A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea.