5966
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All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus]
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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.
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From:
Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f
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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.
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22475
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Moral generalisation is wrong, because we should evaluate individual acts [Nietzsche, by Foot]
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Full Idea:
Nietzsche believed that moral generalisation was impossible because the proper subject of evaluation was, instead, a person's individual act.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.155
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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.
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22476
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Nietzsche thought our psychology means there can't be universal human virtues [Nietzsche, by Foot]
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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.
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From:
report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari) [1885]) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.157
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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?
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