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Ideas for 'works', 'Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation' and 'fragments/reports'

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4 ideas

25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 4. Property rights
The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: It is not the power of forcible tenure but the power of utilisation for social ends that is the ground of the permanent recognition that constitutes a right to property.
     From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III
     A reaction: Tell that to the aristocratic owners of British grouse moors! This just seems to be wishful thinking. Does that mean that I have no right to property if my ends are not 'social'?
Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good.
     From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III
     A reaction: An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.
     From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE])
     A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead."
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11