Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Modal Logics and Philosophy' and 'On the Nature of the Universe'

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 / e. Human nature
Our bodies weren't created to be used; on the contrary, their creation makes a use possible [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: Nothing in our bodies was born in order that we might be able to use it, but the thing born creates the use.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.834)
     A reaction: This remark (strongly opposed to Aristotle's view of human function and nature) raises the obvious question of why the body is so very useful for staying alive. Most of its uses are not random. Lucretius would abandon this view if he read Darwin.
Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch]
     Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings.
     From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II
     A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
The dead are no different from those who were never born [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: One who no longer is cannot suffer, or differ in any way from one who has never been born.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.867)
     A reaction: There is a special kind of pain in being poor if you were once rich, which is not suffered by those who experience only poverty. Lucretius is right, but we are concerned with how we feel now, not with how we won't feel once dead.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure
Nature only wants two things: freedom from pain, and pleasure [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: Nature only clamours for two things, a body free from pain, a mind released from worry and fear for the enjoyment of pleasurable sensation.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.21)
     A reaction: I can't help agreeing with those (like Aristotle) who consider this a very demeaning view of human life. See Idea 99. Bentham agrees with Lucretius (Idea 3777). I think they are largely right, but not entirely. Other motives are possible than sensations.