display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 88 | Nobody would choose all the good things in world, if the price was loss of identity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nobody would choose to have all the good things in the world at the price of becoming somebody else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1166a23) | |
| A reaction: This now looks like a particularly good objection to utilitarianism, which aims to promote pleasure, no matter what the cost. |
| 91 | A man is his own best friend; therefore he ought to love himself best [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A man is his own best friend; therefore he ought to love himself best. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1168b09) | |
| A reaction: Both halves of this sound odd. Being your own best friend has all the oddness of self-identity. Maybe this sort of self-love should be resisted. Altruistic people are lovely. |
| 71 | Licentiousness concerns the animal-like pleasures of touch and taste [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Licentiousness is concerned with such pleasures as are shared with animals (hence thought low and brutish). These are touch and taste. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1118a25) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche is the best opponent of this view, when elevates purely physical pleasures such as dancing to a supreme status. It must be possible to give a justified account of 'high' and 'low' activities, perhaps related to increased generality + universals. |
| 5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus praises ad nauseam the lines "For what need mortals save two things alone,/ Demeter's grain and draughts of water clear". | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1043e | |
| A reaction: "Oh, reason not the need!" says King Lear. The remark shows the close affinity of stoicism and cynicism, as the famous story of Diogenes is that he threw away his drinking cup when he realised you could drink with your hands. |