21 ideas
11074 | 'It is true that this follows' means simply: this follows [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The proposition: "It is true that this follows from that" means simply: this follows from that. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics [1938], p.38), quoted by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6 | |
A reaction: Presumably this remark is simply expressing Wittgenstein's later agreement with the well-known view of Ramsey. Early Wittgenstein had endorsed a correspondence view of truth. |
11073 | Two and one making three has the necessity of logical inference [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: "But doesn't it follow with logical necessity that you get two when you add one to one, and three when you add one to two? and isn't this inexorability the same as that of logical inference? - Yes! it is the same. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics [1938], p.38), quoted by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6 | |
A reaction: This need not be a full commitment to logicism - only to the fact that the inferential procedures in mathematics are the same as those of logic. Mathematics could still have further non-logical ingredients. Indeed, I think it probably does. |
21513 | We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing] |
Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought. | |
From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6 | |
A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere. |
21497 | If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing] |
Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance. | |
From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2 | |
A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues. |
3772 | The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire [Mill] |
Full Idea: The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is the sort of simplistic psychology that modern philosophers tend to avoid. Personally I am more Kantian. I will and desire that the answer to 3+2=? is 5, simply because it is true. Mill must realise we can will ourselves to desire something. |
3769 | With early training, any absurdity or evil may be given the power of conscience [Mill] |
Full Idea: There is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of early sanctions and influence, be made to act on the human mind with all the influence of conscience. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Like this! Think of all the people who have had weird upbringings, and end up feeling guilty about absurd things. Conscience just summarise upbringing and social conventions. |
3767 | Motive shows the worth of the agent, but not of the action [Mill] |
Full Idea: The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I think it is an error to try to separate these too sharply. Morality can't be purely consequential, because it would make earthquakes immoral. Actions indicate the worth of agents. |
3771 | Virtues only have value because they achieve some further end [Mill] |
Full Idea: Utilitarians believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
3768 | Orthodox morality is the only one which feels obligatory [Mill] |
Full Idea: The customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) |
3764 | Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3776 | Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle is a mere form of empty words unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree, is counted for exactly as much as another's (Bentham's "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one"). | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
7202 | The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill] |
Full Idea: One continues to believe in good and evil: in such a way that one feels the victory of good and the annihilation of evil to be a task (- this is English; a typical case is that shallow-headed John Stuart Mill). | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 11[148]e | |
A reaction: The poor old English try very hard to be clear, sensible, practical and realistic, and get branded as 'shallow' for their pains. Nietzsche was a deeper thinker than Mill, but I would prefer Mill to Heidegger any day. |
5935 | Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill] |
Full Idea: Mill's introduction of quality of pleasures into the hedonistic calculus is an unconscious departure from hedonism and a half-hearted admission that there are other qualities than pleasantness in virtue of which states of mind are good. | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
A reaction: Mill argues that experienced people prefer some pleasures to others, but ducks the question of why they might prefer them. It can only be because they have some further desirable quality on top of the equal amount of pleasure. |
3763 | Ultimate goods such as pleasure can never be proved to be good [Mill] |
Full Idea: What can be proved good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. Music is good because it produces pleasure, but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.1) |
3765 | Only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends [Mill] |
Full Idea: Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3766 | Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied [Mill] |
Full Idea: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3770 | General happiness is only desirable because individuals desire their own happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
6697 | Moral rules protecting human welfare are more vital than local maxims [Mill] |
Full Idea: Moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another are more vital to human well-being than any maxims about some department of human affairs; ..though in particular cases a social duty is so important, as to overrule any general maxim of justice. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.7 | |
A reaction: The qualification is realistic, but raises the question of whether an 'act' calculation will always overrule any 'rule'. Maybe rule utilitirianism is just act utilitarianism, but ensuring that the calculations are long-term and extensive. (1871 edn) |
3774 | Rights are a matter of justice, not of benevolence [Mill] |
Full Idea: Wherever there is a right, the case is one of justice, and not of the virtue of benevolence. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
3773 | No individual has the right to receive our benevolence [Mill] |
Full Idea: No one has a moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any given individual. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
3775 | A right is a valid claim to society's protection [Mill] |
Full Idea: When we call anything a person's right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |