display all the ideas for this combination of texts
24 ideas
2371 | A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: The mutual transferring of right is that which men call 'contract'. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
2372 | The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: He that performeth first in the case of a contract, is said to 'merit' that which he is to receive by the performance of the other, and he hath it as due. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
8015 | Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
Full Idea: Hobbes makes two incompatible demands of the original contract: he wishes it to be the foundation of all shared and common standards and rules; but he also wishes it to be a contract, which needs prior shared and common standards. | |
From: comment on Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], Pt 1) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
A reaction: At the very least, the participants in a contract must be committed to keeping it even when it is not convenient. But a common purpose seems to be needed too, which makes the contract itself intrinsically valuable. Similar objections to Kant. |
5337 | For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Hobbes put the Golden Rule as 'do NOT do to others what you would NOT want done to yourself'. Jesus's formulation encouraged active love. Most Westerners conceive their moral duty as not to do harm, rather than actively doing good. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Owen Flanagan - The Problem of the Soul p.20n | |
A reaction: This idea probably runs very deep into western culture, where most people feel that they are being very morally good when they are sitting at home and not actually annoying anyone. Utilitarianism also offers a challenge to such complacency. |
2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: If a covenant is made with neither party performing presently, but trust one another, in the condition of mere nature (which is war between men) upon reasonable suspicion, it is void. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
2375 | Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: If there be a common power set over both parties in a contract, with right and force sufficient to compel performance, a contract does not become void as soon as the parties are suspicious. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
8016 | Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
Full Idea: Hobbes has such a limited view of human motives that he cannot provide any other explanation for the acceptance of authority than the fear of sanctions.. | |
From: comment on Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], Pt 1) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
A reaction: There are two alternative views - the conservative view that people naturally welcome and even need authority, because they need to be led; or the Aristotelian view that people are naturally communal, and authority is part of community life. |
2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: If any fault of man be sufficient to discharge our covenant made, the same ought in reason to have been sufficient to have hindered the making of it. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: He therefore that breaketh his covenant, and consequently declareth that he thinks he may with reason do so, cannot be received into any society. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
2373 | The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: He which performeth first in a contract, does but betray himself to his enemy. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
2382 | Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: He that should be modest and tractable, and perform all the promises, in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
2383 | Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: The writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues and vices, yet not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be praised as the means of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
3771 | Virtues only have value because they achieve some further end [Mill] |
Full Idea: Utilitarians believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
2376 | Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: The definition of 'injustice' is no other than the not performance of covenant….. and 'justice' is the constant will of giving to every man his own. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
3768 | Orthodox morality is the only one which feels obligatory [Mill] |
Full Idea: The customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) |
3776 | Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle is a mere form of empty words unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree, is counted for exactly as much as another's (Bentham's "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one"). | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
7202 | The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill] |
Full Idea: One continues to believe in good and evil: in such a way that one feels the victory of good and the annihilation of evil to be a task (- this is English; a typical case is that shallow-headed John Stuart Mill). | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 11[148]e | |
A reaction: The poor old English try very hard to be clear, sensible, practical and realistic, and get branded as 'shallow' for their pains. Nietzsche was a deeper thinker than Mill, but I would prefer Mill to Heidegger any day. |
5935 | Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill] |
Full Idea: Mill's introduction of quality of pleasures into the hedonistic calculus is an unconscious departure from hedonism and a half-hearted admission that there are other qualities than pleasantness in virtue of which states of mind are good. | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
A reaction: Mill argues that experienced people prefer some pleasures to others, but ducks the question of why they might prefer them. It can only be because they have some further desirable quality on top of the equal amount of pleasure. |
3764 | Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3766 | Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied [Mill] |
Full Idea: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3763 | Ultimate goods such as pleasure can never be proved to be good [Mill] |
Full Idea: What can be proved good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. Music is good because it produces pleasure, but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.1) |
3765 | Only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends [Mill] |
Full Idea: Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3770 | General happiness is only desirable because individuals desire their own happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
6697 | Moral rules protecting human welfare are more vital than local maxims [Mill] |
Full Idea: Moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another are more vital to human well-being than any maxims about some department of human affairs; ..though in particular cases a social duty is so important, as to overrule any general maxim of justice. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.7 | |
A reaction: The qualification is realistic, but raises the question of whether an 'act' calculation will always overrule any 'rule'. Maybe rule utilitirianism is just act utilitarianism, but ensuring that the calculations are long-term and extensive. (1871 edn) |