display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
| 21047 | Aristotle thought slavery is just if it is both necessary and natural [Aristotle, by Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For slavery to be just, according to Aristotle, two conditions must be met: it must be necessary, and it must be natural. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle thought it met both conditions, but no one now thinks it meets either condition. |
| 21044 | For Aristotle, debates about justice are debates about the good life [Aristotle, by Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle believes that debates about justice are, unavoidably, about honour, virtue and the nature of the good life. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: Nozick cannot deny that his desperate attachment to freedom is a vision of the good life, and social contract theories start from the ideal of equality, which is a vision of right living. |
| 5246 | Natural justice is the same everywhere, and does not (unlike legal justice) depend on acceptance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are two sorts of political justice, one natural and the other legal; the natural is that which has the same validity everywhere and does not depend upon acceptance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1134b18) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the germ out of which Aquinas developed more fully the idea of 'natural law'. This remark is strong counterevidence that Aristotle was not merely describing convention in his theory of the virtues. |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 5150 | Intellectual virtue arises from instruction (and takes time), whereas moral virtue result from habit [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Intellectual virtue owes both its inception and its growth chiefly to instruction, and so needs time and experience; moral goodness, on the other hand, is the result of habit. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103a15) | |
| A reaction: If one adds to this his idea of practical reason as the intellectual virtue that makes the moral virtues possible, one has a good formula for running a school. The formula: 1) instruction about theory, 2) practical experience, 3) drilling good habits. |
| 5228 | A suicide embraces death to run away from hardships, rather than because it is a fine deed [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It shows weakness of character to run away from hardships, and the suicide endures death not because it is a fine thing to do but in order to escape from suffering. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1116a14) | |
| A reaction: It is easy to construct a situation where suicide IS a fine deed. And when I put on a warm coat I am running away from hardships rather than pursuing fine deeds. He does have a point, though. |