6 ideas
22371 | Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot] |
Full Idea: The determinism which worries the defender of free will is that if human action is subject to a universal law of causation, there will be for any action a set of sufficient conditions which can be traced back to factors outside the control of the agent. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.63) | |
A reaction: She draws on Russell for this, but neither of them mention whether the causation is physical. Free will seems to imply non-physical causation. |
22372 | Not all actions need motives, but it is irrational to perform troublesome actions with no motive [Foot] |
Full Idea: We do not expect that everything a rational man does should be done with a motive, ...but we do expect a man to have a motive for many things that he does, and would count anyone who constantly performed troublesome actions without a motive as irrational. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.66) | |
A reaction: Interestng, because the assessment of whether someone is 'rational' therefore needs a criterion for when a motive seems required and when not. 'Significant' actions need a motive? |
22373 | People can act out of vanity without being vain, or even vain about this kind of thing [Foot] |
Full Idea: It makes sense to say that a man acts out of vanity on a particular occasion although he is not in general vain, or even vain about this kind of thing. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.69) | |
A reaction: Aristotle tells us that virtues and vices are habits, and also have an intellectual component, implying that the person believes in that sort of behaviour. Anyone can have 'a little moment of vanity'. |
23609 | I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: If I wage war at the commandment of my Prince, conceiving the war to be justly undertaken, I do not therefore do unjustly, but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains only to my Prince. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (De Cive [1642], 12.II), quoted by Jeff McMahan - Killing in War 2.6 | |
A reaction: Hobbes early says that Princes make things just by commanding them. This presumably assumes divine authority in the Prince. This is, of course, ancient pernicious nonsense. |
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. |