Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Morality and the emotions' and 'fragments/reports'

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9 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being

18933	Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: I. Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist as everlasting, as created, as both, as One, or as Many. II. If anything does exist, it is incomprehensible. III. If existence is comprehensible, it is incommunicable.
	From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B03) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09
	A reaction: [Also Sextus Empiricus, Against Logicians I.65-] For Part I he works through all the possible modes of being he can think of, and explains why none of them are possible. It is worth remembering that Gorgias loved rhetoric, not philosophy!

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique

3448	Do new ideas increase the weight of the brain? [Dance]
	Full Idea: If someone gives you a piece of information, does your brain suddenly become heavier?
	From: Adam Dance (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: A beautifully simple question, which is a reductio of the idea that information is simply a physical object. The question points to a functionalist account of brain activity.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions

24008	Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223)
	A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions

24009	Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice).
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic.

19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric

9866	Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
	Full Idea: Gorgias insists that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the best of all the arts.
	From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 58a
	A reaction: A nice point, and it is not unreasonable to rank the arts in order of their power. To enchant, without achieving agreement, and to speak truth without persuading, are both very fine, but there is something about success that cannot be gainsaid.

5864	Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias]
	Full Idea: Destroy the seriousness of others with laughter, and their laughter with seriousness.
	From: Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric 1419b
	A reaction: This sounds like brilliant tactical advice, which should be on the wall of every barrister's chambers. This is a case of rhetoric having something to teach us which is nothing at all to do with truth. It is more like learning karate.

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

24007	Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209)
	A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character

24010	An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty

24012	Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226)
	A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example.