Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'The Enneads' and 'Shame and Necessity'

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2 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: In what I have done, the guilt points in one direction towards what has happened to others, and the shame in another direction to what I am.
     From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.92)
     A reaction: Not convinced. I think shame has the fear of being observed as an inescapable component. Even when alone shame involves imagining what others might think.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
The Soul reasons about the Right, so there must be some permanent Right about which it reasons [Plotinus]
     Full Idea: Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good - for reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that - there must exist some pemanent Right, the source and foundation of this reasoning in our soul.
     From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.11)
     A reaction: This is pretty close the Kant's concept of 'the moral order within me', and Plotinus even sees it as rational. Presumably this right is 'permanent' because the revelatlons of reason about it are necessary truths.