Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point' 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.
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 / i. Prescriptivism
4125 Hare says I acquire an agglomeration of preferences by role-reversal, leading to utilitarianism [Hare, by Williams,B]
     Full Idea: In Hare's theory I apply a "role-reversal test", and then acquire an actual agglomeration of preferences that apply to the hypothetical situation. The result is utilitarianism.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5
     A reaction: It hits that traditional stumbling block, of why I should care about the preferences of others. Pure reason and empathy are the options (Kant or Hume). I may, however, lack both.
4126 If we have to want the preferences of the many, we have to abandon our own deeply-held views [Williams,B on Hare]
     Full Idea: Hare's version of utilitarianism requires an agent to abandon any deeply held principle or conviction if a large enough aggregate of contrary preferences, of whatever kind, favours a contrary action.
     From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5
     A reaction: This nicely attacks any impersonal moral theory, whether it is based on reason or preferences. But where did my personal ideals come from?
4127 If morality is to be built on identification with the preferences of others, I must agree with their errors [Williams,B on Hare]
     Full Idea: If there is to be total identification with others, then if another's preferences are mistaken, the preferences I imagine myself into are equally mistaken, and if 'identification' is the point, they should remain mistaken.
     From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5
     A reaction: Yes. The core of morality must be judgement. Robots can implement universal utilitarian rules, but they could end up promoting persecutions of minorities.
22483 A judgement is presciptive if we expect it to be acted on [Hare]
     Full Idea: We say something prescriptive if and only if, for some act A, some situation S and some person R, if P were to assent (orally) to what we say, and not, in S, do A, he logically must be assenting insincerely.
     From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], p.21), quoted by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.190
     A reaction: Foot offers this as Hare's most explicit definition. The use of algebra strikes me as ludicrous. In logic letters have the virtue of not shifting their meaning during an argument, but that is not required here.
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 8. Contract Strategies
4360 By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright [Hare]
     Full Idea: By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright.
     From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], Ch.11)
     A reaction: Yes. This is the route which takes us from enlightened self-interest to a vision of true morality. Virtue is found to be its own reward, thought that is not how we became virtuous to begin with.