Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Beauty: a very short introduction' and 'fragments/reports'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


4 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 / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton]
     Full Idea: The condemnation of prostitution was not just puritan bigotry; it was a recognition of a profound truth, that you and your body are not two things but one, and by selling the body you harden your soul.
     From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 7)
     A reaction: No one, I imagine, who condones or even enthuses about prostitution would hope that their own daughter followed the profession, so there is something wrong with it. But must an enthusiastic and cheerful prostitute necessarily have a hard soul?
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: We have no obligations of justice to other animals, because they are dissimilar to us.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.66
     A reaction: "Dissimilar" begs questions. Some human beings don't seem much like me. How are we going to treat visiting aliens?
Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: There is no justice between us and other animals because of the dissimilarity between us and them.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.129
     A reaction: [from lost On Justice Bk 1] What would he make of modern revelations about bonobos and chimpanzees? If there is great dissimilarity between some peoples, does that invalidate justice between them? He also said animals exist for our use.