10 ideas
| 23146 | Motives produce intentions, which lead to actions [Driver] |
| Full Idea: Motives will cause persons for form intentions; it is intentions which more directly guide actions. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is invites the question of whether there is a sharp distinction between the motive and the action. Detectives look for motives, but law courts look for intentions. |
| 15677 | Moral right is linked to validity and truth, so morality is a matter of knowledge, not an expression of values [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: According to discourse ethics moral rightness is internally linked to validity and is analogous to truth: ..thus Habermas takes himself to have shown that morality is a matter of knowledge, rather than the expression of contingently held values. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action [1990]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.7:102 | |
| A reaction: I can immediately hear Nietzsche asking why you place such a high value on knowledge. Personally I don't assume that values must be 'contingent'. The Aristotelian tradition sees necessary values in facts about human nature. |
| 15671 | Move from individual willing of a general law, to willing norms agreed with other people [Habermas] |
| Full Idea: The emphasis shifts from what each can will without contradiction to be a general law, to what all can will in agreement to be a universal norm. | |
| From: Jürgen Habermas (Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action [1990], p.67), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.5:69 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being very close to Scanlon's contractualism. As expressed here, it sounds more vulnerable than Kant's full universality to the problem of Nazis agreeing odious universal norms. Habermas calls it 'discourse ethics'. |
| 23147 | Good intentions are not necessary for virtue [Driver] |
| Full Idea: I deny the claim that good intentions are necessary for virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably one could continually do the right thing, because it was your duty or your job, without actually being well motivated for it. |
| 23144 | Virtue should be defined by consequences, not by states of mind [Driver] |
| Full Idea: The behavioural aspects of virtue are more important than its phenomenology, because virtue is best defined along consequentialist lines. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thesis of her paper. Quite persuasive. Consequences are, of course, important in all moral theories (even Kant's). She doesn't rely on human nature. The social virtues vary according to the circumstances, such as gossiping in wartime. |
| 23148 | Virtues are character traits or dispositions which produce good consequences for others [Driver] |
| Full Idea: A moral virtue is a character trait (a disposition or cluster of dispositions) which, generally speaking, produces good consequences for others. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: There are self-directed virtues, such as keeping fit and healthy. There are virtues for ways to receive the kindness of others. That said, I like this idea. |
| 23150 | Control of pregnancy and knowledge of paternity have downgraded chastity [Driver] |
| Full Idea: Women now have more control over becoming pregnant. Men can now be more certain of paternity, without the constraint of female chastity. Hence chastity is no longer considered a moral virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 5) | |
| A reaction: A persuasive argument that virtues are defined by their consequences (to which I add my example of gossiping in wartime). Different social situations and crises promote or relegate the status of certain virtues (such as food hoarding). |
| 23149 | If generosity systematically turned recipients into parasites, it wouldn't be a virtue [Driver] |
| Full Idea: If generosity towards the needy in the long run produced [social] parasites, and if generosity did this systematically, then it would not be a moral virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 5) | |
| A reaction: A very persuasive example. Hume has similar views - that we encourage those emotions which have good social outcomes. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |