Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Phaedo' and 'Rationality and Goodness'

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2 ideas

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / d. Virtue theory critique
Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.
     From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue'
     A reaction: [She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 4. External Goods / c. Wealth
War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato]
     Full Idea: All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth, and we want this because of the body, to which we are slave.
     From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 066c)