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Ideas for '', 'The Right and the Good' and 'The Correspondence Theory of Truth'

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22 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
5911 Moral duties are as fundamental to the universe as the axioms of mathematics [Ross]
     Full Idea: The moral order expressed in the propositions of duties is just as much part of the fundamental nature of the universe (or any possible universe) as is the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II)
     A reaction: A few of the axioms of geometry (e.g. the parallel line postulate) have been changed, with interesting results. Moral duties seem to change dramatically in a crisis, such as a war, or a ship sinking. Can I have a duty if I am too dim to perceive it?
5926 The beauty of a patch of colour might be the most important fact about it [Ross]
     Full Idea: I cannot agree that a description of a patch of colour would be complete without the statement that it is beautiful (if that is so); for its beauty might be for some purposes the most important fact about it.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: 'Important' to whom. To me the most important fact about my pen might be that it is mine, but that doesn't seem to be a feature of an intrinsic description of the pen. If beauty is a relational quality, Ross's point is undermined.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
7259 Ross said moral principles are self-evident from the facts, but not from pure thought [Ross, by Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: Ross held that moral principles are self-evident to us, meaning that no more is needed to reveal their truth to us as general guides to behaviour than what is the case before us, not that we can discover a moral truth just by thinking about it.
     From: report of W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930]) by Jonathan Dancy - Intuitionism
     A reaction: This seems to be a crucial distinction between two types of intuitionism, one that is purely a priori, and one that chimes in with the 'particularist' reading of virtue theory. The former is implausible and much attacked; the latter is more interesting.
5913 The moral convictions of thoughtful educated people are the raw data of ethics [Ross]
     Full Idea: We have no more direct way of access to the facts about rightness and goodness and their objects, than by thinking about them; the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated people are the data of ethics just as perceptions are the data of science.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II)
     A reaction: Sounds suspiciously like 'the intuitions of people like me', and hence gets a bad name in late twentieth century super-democratic society (esp. in America), but personally I think you can only value education if you think educated people are superior.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
5920 Value is held to be either a quality, or a relation (usually between a thing and a mind) [Ross]
     Full Idea: For most theories of value may be divided into those which treat it as a quality and those which treat it as a relation between that which has value and something else, usually a state of mind.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: We might say that a leaf only has value to a tree (which has no mind). Presumably if value is a relation to a mind, it can be further reduced to being an object of desire, but this will give class A drugs a greater value than a beautiful deed.
5923 The arguments for value being an objective or a relation fail, so it appears to be a quality [Ross]
     Full Idea: I conclude that the arguments in favour of thinking of value as an objective are no more successful than those in favour of treating it as a relation, ..and the natural view that value is a quality therefore holds its ground.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: See Ross's text for the arguments. It seems unlikely that argument could fully demonstrate his claim. Even physical qualities (such as weight or velocity) can have a relational component, and many things can only have value in a cultural context.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
5918 The thing is intrinsically good if it would be good when nothing else existed [Ross]
     Full Idea: By calling a thing intrinsically good we mean that it would be good even if nothing else existed.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: This dramatic image (the Mona Lisa alone in vacancy) raises grave doubts about whether there is very much that could qualify for 'intrinsic value'. I even doubt the value of the MS of the Goldberg Variations, if nothing else exists.
5930 All things being equal, we all prefer the virtuous to be happy, not the vicious [Ross]
     Full Idea: Everyone would prefer the second of two universes, if each had equal vice and virtue, and each had equal pleasure and pain, but in the first the virtuous were miserable and the vicious happy, while in the second universe it was the opposite.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §V)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a very good example of an intuition which it is hard to resist. Would some vile Mafia boss really want heaven to be full of murderers, while good-hearted and kind people all went to hell?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
5922 An instrumentally good thing might stay the same, but change its value because of circumstances [Ross]
     Full Idea: If a thing is only instrumentally good or bad, then even when its nature remains the same it might have a different instrumental value if the causal laws of the universe, or of other things in the universe, were different.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: A bad tin-opener might be instrumentally good if it was the only one you owned, so we don't need to change the causal laws of the universe.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
5921 We can ask of pleasure or beauty whether they are valuable, but not of goodness [Ross]
     Full Idea: While it can be intelligently asked whether the pleasant or beautiful has value, it cannot be intelligently asked whether the good has value, since the good is just to be valuable.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: It is simply tautological that goodness has value, and that valuable things are good. But an assassin might 'value' a 'good' way of killing someone, or an instrument of torture. We might say "He values x, but x is bad". Still, he must think x is good.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
5932 The four goods are: virtue, pleasure, just allocation of pleasure, and knowledge [Ross]
     Full Idea: Four things seem to be intrinsically good - virtue, pleasure, the allocation of pleasure to the virtuous, and knowledge.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §V)
     A reaction: I greatly admire a philosopher who has the courage to assert such a thing, in the face of centuries of scepticism about anyone's ability to even get started in this area. We need the bold assertions first; we can work back to doubts later, if necessary.
5910 The three intrinsic goods are virtue, knowledge and pleasure [Ross]
     Full Idea: There are three main things which are intrinsically good - virtue, knowledge, and with certain limitations, pleasure.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II)
     A reaction: This combines the views of most of the main schools of ancient Greece. For Socrates, knowledge delivers the others; for Aristippus, pleasure eclipses the others; for Zeno of Citium, virtue is all that matters. Ross is a pluralist, like Aristotle.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
5898 'Right' and 'good' differ in meaning, as in a 'right action' and a 'good man' [Ross]
     Full Idea: 'Right' does not mean the same as 'morally good'; we cannot substitute 'he is a right man' for 'he is a morally good man'; this is not just an English idiom, as it is clear that a 'right act' is the act which ought to be done.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §I)
     A reaction: This is nowadays accepted as a basic distinction in ethical discussions. Shooting a prisoner might be the right thing to do, but it is unlikely to be good. We may talk of 'good deeds', but never of 'right' people.
5899 If there are two equally good acts, they may both be right, but neither a duty [Ross]
     Full Idea: If it is our duty to produce one or other of two or more different states of affairs, without its being our duty to produce one rather than the another, then in such a case each of these acts will be right, and none will be our duty.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §I)
     A reaction: An elegant piece of analytical philosophy, which shows fairly conclusively that 'right' is distinct from 'duty', as well as being distinct from 'good'. We can generalise about right actions, without identifying anyone who has the duty to perform them.
5904 In the past 'right' just meant what is conventionally accepted [Ross]
     Full Idea: In the past 'what is right' was hardly disentangled from 'what the tribe ordains'; ..'it is the custom' has been accompanied by 'the custom is right', or 'the custom is ordained by someone who has the right to command'.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §I)
     A reaction: Ross is rejecting this older view, in favour an absolute (and intuitively known) concept of what is right. All right-thinking people should wish Ross luck in his project, no matter how pessimistic the onlooker may be.
5919 Goodness is a wider concept than just correct ethical conduct [Ross]
     Full Idea: Goodness in general runs out beyond the strict scope of ethics, if ethics be the philosophical study of good conduct; for some things that are good are neither conduct nor dispositions to conduct.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §IV)
     A reaction: This seems to be right, just as the Greek term 'areté' extended beyond moral virtue to excellence in athletics or pottery. Maybe philosophers are too interested in ethics, and have thus missed the philosophical core of the problem.
5941 Motives decide whether an action is good, and what is done decides whether it was right [Ross]
     Full Idea: Actions are morally good in virtue of their motives; this is quite distinct from rightness, which belongs to act in virtue of the nature of what is done. So a good action may not do what is right, and a right action need not be morally good.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §VII)
     A reaction: This sounds neat, but it is hard to find clearcut examples to confirm it. Having your cat put down may be right but not good, but presumably your motive was good.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue
5938 Virtue is superior to pleasure, as pleasure is never a duty, but goodness is [Ross]
     Full Idea: The acquisition of pleasure for oneself rarely, if ever, presents itself as a duty, while the attainment of moral goodness habitually presents itself as a duty; this surely points to an infinity superiority of virtue over pleasure.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §VI)
     A reaction: You have to be a fully paid-up intuitionist (like Ross) before you can assert such gloriously confident judgements about duty. Personal pleasure could become a duty if you had mistakenly denied it to yourself for a long time.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / e. Good as knowledge
5931 All other things being equal, a universe with more understanding is better [Ross]
     Full Idea: Can anyone doubt that it would be a better state of the universe if, with equality in respect of virtue and of pleasure, and of the allocation of pleasure to the virtuous, the persons in the universe had a far greater understanding of its laws and nature?
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §V)
     A reaction: Another nice test of our intuitions, with which it is hard to disagree. This technique of argument is found in Plato's Republic (360e onwards). See also Aristotle Idea 543. There are some intuitions which you expect to be universal.
5939 Morality is not entirely social; a good moral character should love truth [Ross]
     Full Idea: The doctrine that morality is entirely social, that all duty consists in promoting the good of others, seems to me profound mistake; intellectual integrity, the love of truth for its own sake, is among the most salient elements in a good moral character.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §VI)
     A reaction: The objection to this might be than an ideal love of truth is a social virtue, because it produces reliable and useful citizens. Would it be immoral for Robinson Crusoe to live by fictions, instead of facing the depressing truth?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
5905 We clearly value good character or understanding, as well as pleasure [Ross]
     Full Idea: On reflection it seems clear that pleasure is not the only thing in life that we think good in itself, that for instance we think the possession of a good character, or an intelligent understanding of the world, as good or better.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II)
     A reaction: Aristotle and Plato would obviously agree with this. I agree, as I cannot comprehend the claim that pleasure is self-evidently the good, simply because it feels nice. Why shouldn't evil feel nice?
5929 No one thinks it doesn't matter whether pleasure is virtuously or viciously acquired [Ross]
     Full Idea: If anyone thinks pleasure alone is the good, it seems to me enough to ask whether, of two states of the universe holding equal amounts of pleasure, we should really think no better of one in with virtuous dispositions and actions than of its opposite.
     From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §V)
     A reaction: An important technique of argument, analagous to scientific experiment. Hold the variable which is considered to be uniquely vital constant, and see if anyone cares if some other variable changes. It is a good argument.