display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
8029 | You can't have a morality which is supplied by the individual, but is also genuinely universal [Hegel, by MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Hegel attacks doctrines which are attempts by the individual to supply his own morality, and at one and the same time, to claim for it a genuine universality. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.15 | |
A reaction: Hegel clearly has Kant in mind. It is a penetrating criticism. Of course, there is no reason why a universal mathematical proof shouldn't be 'provided' by the individual. The Kantian seeks agreement. See Contractualism. |
22051 | The categorical imperative lacks roots in a historical culture [Hegel, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Hegel criticised the categorical imperative for lacking any roots in the moral habits and practices which develop in actual historical communities. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
A reaction: This is the gist of Alasdair MacIntyre's defence of virtue theory, against rational Enlightenment ethics. Charles Taylor made the link to Hegel. |
22771 | Be a person, and respect other persons [Hegel] |
Full Idea: The commandment of right is: be a person, and respect other persons | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 036) | |
A reaction: This seems to be presented as a categorical imperative. He implies that you can choose whether to be a person, which seems wrong. I love making 'respect other persons' the supreme command - but I prefer 'respect everything'. |
22781 | The categorical imperative is fine if you already have a set of moral principles [Hegel] |
Full Idea: The proposition 'Consider whether your maxim can be asserted as a universal principle' would be all very well if we already had determinate principles concerning how to act. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 135 add) | |
A reaction: Excellent! I have always taken this to be the overwhelming problem with Kant's theory. Kant's examples always presume a set of unquestioned conventional values. Kant offers a framework for moral thought, but values are what matter. |
22779 | The good is realised freedom [Hegel] |
Full Idea: The good is realised freedom, the absolute and ultimate end of the world. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 129) | |
A reaction: This remark could have been made by Sartre. On its own I find it baffling, and can make no sense of an account of ethics that gives no guidance on behaviour at all, other than that freedom should be asserted. |