Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari)' and 'Begriffsschrift'

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5 ideas

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / a. Nature of virtue

5966	All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus]
	Full Idea: Although deeds done in accordance with virtue are congenial, not all are cited as examples, such as courageously extending one's finger, or continently abstaining from a half-dead old woman, or not immediately agreeing that three is four.
	From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f
	A reaction: Presumably the point (so elegantly expressed - what a shame we have lost most of Chrysippus) is that virtue comes in degrees, even though its value is an absolute. The same has been said (by Russell and Bonjour) about self-evidence.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / b. Basis of virtue

20855	Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Chrysippus says that virtue can be lost, owing to drunkenness and excess of black bile, whereas Cleanthes says it cannot, because it consists in secure intellectual grasps, and it is worth choosing for its own sake.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.127
	A reaction: Succumbing to drunkenness looks like evidence that you were not truly virtuous. Mental illness is something else. On the whole I agree the Cleanthes.

5970	Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
	Full Idea: Chrysippus has often written on the theme that there is nothing reprehensible or blameworthy in the universe since all things are accomplished in conformity with the best nature.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1051b
	A reaction: This is Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", but deriving the idea from the rightness of nature rather than the perfection of God. Chrysippus has a more plausible ground than Leibniz, as for him nasty things follow from conscious choice.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / c. Particularism

22475	Moral generalisation is wrong, because we should evaluate individual acts [Nietzsche, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Nietzsche believed that moral generalisation was impossible because the proper subject of evaluation was, instead, a person's individual act.
	From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.155
	A reaction: This suggests a different type of particularism, focusing on the particular decision, rather than on the details of the situation. Presumable no two moral decisions are ever sufficiently the same to be compared. But a lie is a lie.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / d. Virtue theory critique

22476	Nietzsche thought our psychology means there can't be universal human virtues [Nietzsche, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Nietzsche believed, in effect, that as the facts of human psychology really were, there could be no such thing as human virtues, dispositions good in any man.
	From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.157
	A reaction: Presumably each individual can only have virtues appropriate to their individual nature, which is something like channelling their personal psychological drives. Can't we each have our individual version of courage or honesty?