Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'A Puzzle about Belief' and 'reports of career'

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2 ideas

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / c. Natural law
Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in On the Honourable) that justice is natural and not conventional, as are the law and right reason.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.128
     A reaction: How does he explain variations in the law between different states? Presumably some of them have got it wrong. What is the criterion for deciding which laws are natural?
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / b. Retribution for crime
Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates]
     Full Idea: Socrates was the first Greek to grasp the truth that if someone has done a nasty thing to me, this does not give the slightest moral justification for doing anything nasty to him.
     From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.190