Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Consciousness: matter becomes imagination' and 'Protagoras'

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2 ideas

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain [Edelman/Tononi]
     Full Idea: Early and central in the development of the brain are the dimensions provided by value systems indicating salience for the entire organism.
     From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13)
     A reaction: This doesn't quite meet Hume's challenge to find values in the whole of nature, but it matches Charles Taylor's claim that for humans values are knowable a priori. Conditional values can be facts of the whole of nature. "If there is life, x has value..".
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / j. Evil
No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato]
     Full Idea: No one willingly goes to meet evil, or what he thinks is evil.
     From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 358d)
     A reaction: Presumably people who actively choose satanism can override this deep-seated attitude. But their adherence to evil usually seems to be rather restrained. A danger of tautology with ideas like this.