Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit', 'Nature and Utility of Religion' and 'Intro to 'Provenance of Pure Reason''

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16 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 1. Axiomatisation

13416	Mathematics must be based on axioms, which are true because they are axioms, not vice versa [Tait, by Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: The axiomatic conception of mathematics is the only viable one. ...But they are true because they are axioms, in contrast to the view advanced by Frege (to Hilbert) that to be a candidate for axiomhood a statement must be true.
	From: report of William W. Tait (Intro to 'Provenance of Pure Reason' [2005], p.4) by Charles Parsons - Review of Tait 'Provenance of Pure Reason' §2
	A reaction: This looks like the classic twentieth century shift in the attitude to axioms. The Greek idea is that they must be self-evident truths, but the Tait-style view is that they are just the first steps in establishing a logical structure. I prefer the Greeks.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism

6237	Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: Conscience is to find horribly offensive the reflection of any unjust action or behaviour; to have awe and terror of the Deity, does not, of itself, imply conscience; …thus religious conscience supposes moral or natural conscience.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I)
	A reaction: The reply from religion would be that the Deity has implanted natural conscience in each creature, though this seems to deny our freedom of moral judgment. Personally I am inclined to think that values are just observations of the world - such as health.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism

6234	If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: If a creature wanting reason has many good qualities and affections, it is certain that if you give this creature a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness and pity.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.III.III)
	A reaction: A wonderful denunciation of the authority of reason, which must have influenced David Hume. I think, though, that the inverse of this case must be considered (if suddenly given feelings, they would fall in line with reasoning). We reason about feelings.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism

6233	A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: We do not say that he is a good man when, having his hands tied up, he is hindered from doing the mischief he designs; …hence it is by affection merely that a creature is esteemed good or ill, natural or unnatural.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I)
	A reaction: Note that he more or less equates being morally 'ill' with being 'unnatural'. We tend to reserve 'unnatural' for extreme or perverse crimes. Personally I would place more emphasis on evil judgements, and less on evil feelings.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / d. Sources of pleasure

6236	People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: How much the social pleasures are superior to any other may be known by visible tokens and effects; the marks and signs which attend this sort of joy are more intense and clear than those which attend the satisfaction of thirst and hunger.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I)
	A reaction: He presumably refers to smiles and laughter, but they could be misleading as they are partly a means of social communication. You should ask people whether they would prefer a nice conversation or a good pork chop. Nice point, though.

23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism

6235	Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: Though no creature can be called good merely for possessing the self-preserving affections, it is impossible that public good can be preserved without them; so that a creature wanting in them is wanting in natural rectitude, and may be esteemed vicious.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.I.III)
	A reaction: Aristotle held a similar view (Idea 92). I think maybe Shaftesbury was the last call of the Aristotelians, before being engulfed by utilitarians and Kantians. This idea is at the core of capitalism.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / b. Basis of virtue

6232	Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury]
	Full Idea: We know there is a right and a wrong state of every creature; and that his right one is by nature forwarded, and by himself affectionately sought. There being therefore in every creature a certain interest or good; there must also be a natural end.
	From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I)
	A reaction: This is an early modern statement of Aristotelian teleology, just at the point where it was falling out of fashion. The underlying concept is that of right function. I agree with Shaftesbury, but you can't stop someone damaging their health.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question

5642	For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: Shaftesbury argued that no morality could be founded in religious obedience, or piety. On the contrary, a man is motivated to such obedience only because conscience tells him that the divine being is worthy of it.
	From: report of 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.8
	A reaction: This seems to me a good argument. The only alternative is that we are brought to God by a conscience which was planted in us by God, but then how would you know you were being obedient to the right hypnotist?

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique

21332	We don't get a love of 'order' from nature - which is thoroughly chaotic [Mill]
	Full Idea: Even the love of 'order' which is thought to be a following of the ways of nature is in fact a contradiction of them. All which people are accustomed to deprecate as 'disorder' is precisely a counterpart of nature's ways.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: The Greeks elevated the idea that the cosmos was orderly, but almost entirely based on the regular movement of the planets. They turned a blind eye to the messy bits of nature. As you magnify nature, order and chaos seem to alternate.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil

21333	Evil comes from good just as often as good comes from evil [Mill]
	Full Idea: If good frequently comes out of evil, the converse fact, evil coming out of good, is equally common.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.117)
	A reaction: Mill surmises that on the whole good comes from good, and evil from evil, but the point is that the evidence doesn't favour the production of increased good.

21335	Belief that an afterlife is required for justice is an admission that this life is very unjust [Mill]
	Full Idea: The necessity of redressing the balance [of injustice] is deemed one of the strongest arguments for another life after death, which amounts to an admission that the order of things in this life is often an example of injustice, not justice.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874])
	A reaction: It certainly seems that an omnipotent God could administer swift justice in this life. If the whole point is that we need freedom of will, then why is justice administered at a much later date? The freedom seems to be illusory.

21334	No necessity ties an omnipotent Creator, so he evidently wills human misery [Mill]
	Full Idea: If a Creator is assumed to be omnipotent, if he bends to a supposed necessity, he himself makes the necessity which he bends to. If the maker of the world can all that he will, he wills misery, and there is no escape from the conclusion.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.119)
	A reaction: If you add that the Creator is supposed to be perfectly benevolent, you arrive at the paradox which Mackie spells out. Is the correct conclusion that God exists, and is malevolent? Mill doesn't take that option seriously.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil

21329	Nature dispenses cruelty with no concern for either mercy or justice [Mill]
	Full Idea: All of this [cruel killing] nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.115)
	A reaction: The existence of an afterlife at least offers an opportunity to rectify any injustice, but that hardly meets the question of why there was injustice in the first place. It would be odd if it actually is justice, but none of us can see why that is so.

21328	Killing is a human crime, but nature kills everyone, and often with great tortures [Mill]
	Full Idea: Killing, the most criminal act recognised by human laws, nature does once to every being that lives, and frequently after protracted tortures such as the greatest know monsters purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.115)
	A reaction: We certainly don't condemn lions for savaging gazelles, but the concept of a supreme mind controlling nature forces the question. Theology needs consistency between human and divine morality, and the supposed derivation of the former from the latter.

21330	Nature makes childbirth a miserable experience, often leading to the death of the mother [Mill]
	Full Idea: In the clumsy provision which nature has made for the perpetual renewal of animal life, ...no human being ever comes into the world but another human being is literally stretched on the rack for hours or day, not unfrequently issuing in death.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: This is a very powerful example, which is rarely cited in modern discussions.

21331	Hurricanes, locusts, floods and blight can starve a million people to death [Mill]
	Full Idea: Nature often takes the means by which we live. A single hurricane, a flight of locusts, or an inundation, or a trifling chemical change in an edible root, starve a million people.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: [second sentence compressed] The 'edible root' is an obvious reference to the Irish potato famine. Some desertification had human causes, but these are telling examples.