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18383
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Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
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A reaction:
To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.
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11891
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Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
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A reaction:
This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.
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23059
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Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray]
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Full Idea:
Sidgwick said self-interest is not self-evidently rational. Unless we invoke a religious idea of the soul, human personality is no more than a succession of continuities in memory and behaviour. In that case, why should anyone favour their future self?
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From:
report of Henry Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics (7th edn) [1874]) by John Gray - Seven Types of Atheism 2
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A reaction:
This sounds like Locke's account of the self, as psychological continuity. We can say that our continuous self is a fiction, the hero of our own narrative. Personally I think of the self as a sustained set of brains structures which change very little.
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4129
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It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick]
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Full Idea:
It is a self-evident principle that the good of one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view of the Universe, than the good of any other, ..and as a rational being I am bound to aim at good generally, not merely at a particular part.
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From:
Henry Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics (7th edn) [1874], III.XIII.3)
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A reaction:
Showing that even a very empirical theory like utilitarianism has an a priori basis. Of course, the principle is false. What about animals, the senile, criminals, androids? What bestows 'importance'?
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20704
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A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
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A reaction:
This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.
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