58 ideas
| 16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Lewis articulated and made fashionable the cost-benefit reflective equilibrium methodology, but I have my reservations as it does not offer much guidance. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker suggests that this approach has 'run amok' in Lewis's case, giving reality to possible worlds. He spends much effort on showing the 'benefits' of a profoundly implausible view. The same can be said of 4D Perdurantism. |
| 16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: One can make sense of necessary versus contingent necessities in a non-S5 modal semantics. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3 n17) | |
| A reaction: In S5 □φ → □□φ, so all necessities are necessary. Does it make any sense to say 'I suppose this might have been necessarily true'? |
| 16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: One principle of modal set theory should be uncontroversial: a set exists in a given possible world if and only if all of its members exist at that world. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean there can be no set containing all of my ancestors and future descendants? In no world can we coexist. |
| 16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The point of regimentation is to give a perspicuous representation of the semantic structure of an expression, making it easier to evaluate the validity of arguments and to interpret complex statements. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This is an authoritative summary from an expert of why all philosophers must take an interest in logical form. |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: In 'either Socrates was a philosopher or someone other than Socrates was a philosopher', both propositions expressed by the disjuncts depend for their existence on the existence of Socrates, but the whole disjunction does not. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Nice example, just the sort of thing we pay philosophers to come up with. He is claiming that propositions can exist in possible worlds in which the individuals mentioned do not exist. |
| 16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers deny there could have been anything other than what in fact exists, or that anything that exists could have failed to exist. This is developed in very different ways by Wittgenstein (in 'Tractatus'), Lewis and Williamson. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: This could come in various strengths. A weak version would say that, empirically, that all talk of what doesn't exist is vacuous. A strong necessity (Williamson?) that totally rules out other possible existence is a very odd view. |
| 16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A nominalist definition of existence is 'having spatio-temporal location'. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This would evidently be physicalist as well as nominalist. Presumably it fits the 'mosaic' of reality Lewis refers to. I find this view sympathetic. A process of abstraction is required to get the rest of the stuff we talk about. |
| 16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I take properties and relations to be modal notions. Properties are to be understood in terms of what it would be for them to be exemplified, which means understanding them in terms of a range of possible situations. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I can't make head or tail of a property as anything other than a feature of some entity. Treating properties as a 'range of situations' is just as baffling to me as treating them as sets of objects. |
| 16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I myself am prepared to accept higher-order properties and relations. There is the property of being Socrates, …and the property of being the property of being Socrates, ..and so on. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere I have quoted such a hierarchy of vacuous properties as an absurdity that arises if all predicates are treated as properties. Logicians can live with such stuff, given their set hierarchy and so on, but in science and life this is a nonsense. |
| 16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional properties deserve special mention since they seem to be properties that have modal consequences - consequences for what properties the individuals that instantiate them would have in counterfactual circumstances. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the key idea in trying to understand modality, but Stalnaker makes this point and then moves swiftly on, because it is so far away from his possible worlds models, in which he has invested a lifetime. |
| 16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It seems natural to paraphrase the claim that Socrates is essentially human as the claim that nothing could be Socrates if it was not human. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: In ordinary speech it would be emphasising how very human Socrates was (in comparison with Frege, for example). By this token Socrates essentially breathes oxygen, but that is hardly part of his essence. |
| 16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: On the bundle theory, the identity of indiscernibles (for 'individuals') is a necessary truth, since an individual is just the co-instantiation of all the properties represented by a point in the space of properties. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: So much the worse for the bundle theory, I presume. Leibniz did not, I think, hold a bundle theory, but his belief in the identity of indiscernibles seems to have had a theologicial underpinning. |
| 16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Prior had a strong and a weak reading of necessity, where strong necessity is truth in all possible worlds, while weak necessity is falsity in no possible world. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: [K.Fine 2005:Ch.9 is also cited] The point of the weak one is that in some worlds there might not exist the proposition which is the candidate for truth or falsehood. |
| 16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: My view is that if there were a nonmodal analysis of the modal concepts, that would be a sure sign that we were on the wrong track. Necessity and possibility are fundamental concepts, like truth and existence. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The mystery of modality is tied up with the mystery of time (which is a very big mystery indeed). You get a nice clear grip on the here and now, but time and motion whisk you away to something else. Modality concerns the something else. |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Modal concepts are central to our understanding of the world - the actual world - and understanding them should not require extravagant metaphysical commitments. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: I agree. Personally I think powers and dispositions do the job nicely. You just have to embrace Leibniz's emphasis on the active nature of reality, and the implausible metaphysics starts to recede. |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: My main focus is on how, on an actualist interpretation of possible worlds as ways a world might be, one is to account for the possibility that there be individuals other than those that actually exist. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], Pref) | |
| A reaction: The obvious thought would be that they are constructions from components of actual individuals, such as the chimaera, or fictional characters. We need some psychology here, which is not Stalnaker's style. |
| 16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds are (to a first approximation) properties. [p.12] They are properties of the total universe. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) |
| 16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It is not reduction (of modality) but regimentation that the possible-worlds framework provides - a procedure for representing modal discourse, using primitive modal notions, in a way that helps reveal its structure. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly my view. All discussion of the ontology of possible worlds is irrelevant. They no more exist than variables in logic exist. They're good when they clarify, but dubious when they over-simplify. |
| 16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I prefer to think of the possible worlds not as points in logical space but as cells of a relatively fine-grained partition of logical space - a partition that makes all the distinctions we need. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Since he regards possible worlds as simply a means of regimenting our understanding of modality, he can think of possible worlds in any way that suits him. I find it hard work tuning in to his vision. |
| 16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Things have modal properties only relative to the choice of a counterpart relation, and the choice between alternative counterpart relations is not constrained by the metaphysics. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker is sympathetic to counterparts, but this strikes me as a powerful objection to the theory. I take the modal properties of something to be fixed by its actuality. |
| 16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist strategy holds that a purely qualitative characterisation of a possible world would be a complete characterisation; there is, on this view, nothing to being a particular individual other than meeting certain qualitative conditions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: Not quite the same as the bundle theory of objects, which says the objects are the qualities. This is about individuation, not about ontology (I think). I don't like anti-haecceitism, but I also don't like haecceitism. Hmm. |
| 18658 | The 'Kantian' self steps back from commitment to its social situation [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The 'Kantian' view of the self strongly defends the view that the self is prior to its socially given roles and relationships, and is free only if it is capable of holding these features of its social situation at a distance, and judging them by reason. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: There is no correct answer here, because I am capable of Kantian distancing, and also capable of submersing myself in the social constructions around me. If society fosters rebellion (1810s, 1960s) then we become more Kantian. |
| 16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: How can we know what we ourselves are thinking if the very existence of the content of our thought may depend on facts of which we are ignorant? | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 5) | |
| A reaction: This has always been my main doubt about externalism. I may defer to experts about what I intend by an 'elm' (Putnam's example), but what I mean by elm is thereby a fuzzy tall tree with indeterminate leaves. I don't know the meaning of 'elm'! |
| 16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: We still do not know how to give a direct semantics for the quantifiers of a natural language; that is something that we still do not know how to do (or at least how it is done remains controversial). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4) | |
| A reaction: I am struck by how rapidly the domain of quantification changes, even in mid-sentence, in the course of an ordinary conversation. This is decided almost entirely by context, not by pure ('direct'?) semantics. |
| 16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Most theorists agree that possible worlds semantics cannot provide an analysis of modal concepts which is an eliminative reduction, but it can still provide an explanation of the meanings of modal expressions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker cites Kit Fine for the view that there is no reduction of modality, which Fine takes to be primitive. Stalnaker defends the semantics, while denying the reduction which Lewis thought possible. |
| 16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I will defend the view that propositions are truth conditions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds close to the Russellian view, which I take to equate propositions (roughly) with facts or states of affairs. But are 'truth conditions' in the world or in the head? |
| 16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A minimal theory of propositions can make do with just two primitive properties: a property of consistency applied to sets of propositions, and a property of truth applied to propositions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought a minimal theory would need some account of what a proposition is supposed to be (since there seems to be very little agreement about that). Stalnaker goes on to sketch a theory. |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that singular propositions are object-dependent in the sense that the proposition would not exist if the individual did not. It is also plausible that some objects exist contingently, and there are singular propositions about them. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This replies to the view that possible worlds are maximal sets of propositions, and so must exist for the worlds to exist; e.g. Lowe 1999:248. That is yet another commonplace of contemporary philosophy which I find utterly bewildering. |
| 18650 | Teleological theories give the good priority over concern for people [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Teleological theories take concern for the good (e.g. freedom or utility) as fundamental, and concern for people as derivative. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a.ii) | |
| A reaction: There's a nice fundamental question with which to begin a discussion of value: which matters most - abstract values, or individual people? Placing a collective of people first (Stalinism?) seems to fall between them. |
| 18664 | Maybe the particularist moral thought of women is better than the impartial public thinking of men [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: There is a significant strand of contemporary feminism which argues that we should take seriously women's different morality. ...The particularistic thought women employ is a better morality than the impartial thought men employ in the public sphere. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: I had taken Particularism to be an offshoot of virtue theory, as promulgated by Jonathan Dancy. Evidently the influence of feminism is strong. Personally I think the world would be a better place if it was run by women. |
| 18624 | Utilitarianism is not a decision-procedure; choice of the best procedure is an open question [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is essentially a 'standard of rightness', not a 'decision-procedure'. ...It is an open question whether we should employ a utilitarian decision-procedure - indeed, this question itself is to be answered by examining its consequences. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.3.b) | |
| A reaction: The point is that the aim is to maximise happiness, and you might do that by just maximising baked bean consumption, and not even thinking about happiness. This idea is labelled 'indirect utilitarianism'. Happiness does seem to be a by-product. |
| 18626 | One view says start with equality, and infer equal weight to interests, and hence maximum utility [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The first main argument for utilitarianism is that people matter equally, and hence each person's interests should be given equal weight, and hence morally right acts will maximise utility. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a) | |
| A reaction: The point is that this starts from the aim of equality, and infers maximum utility as its consequence. Equality has a primitive value. Whenever you dig down to a primitive value in a theory, I just find myself puzzled. What can justify basic equality? |
| 18627 | A second view says start with maximising the good, implying aggregation, and hence equality [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The second main argument for utilitarianism defines the right in terms of maximising the good, which leads to the utilitarian aggregation standard, which as a mere consequence treats people's interests equally. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.b) | |
| A reaction: This takes maximum good as a primitive, and arrives at equality as the way to achieve it. So which is more morally fundamental, a maximum of goodness, or human equality? Kymlicka says this idea is too impersonal. |
| 18625 | To maximise utility should we double the population, even if life somewhat deteriorates? [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Morally, should we double the population, even if it means reducing each person's welfare by almost half (since that will still increase overall utility)? | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.b) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Derek Parfit for this] The key word is 'almost', which ensures a small increase in overall utility. I think this is a particularly good objection to utilitarianism, which aims to maximise an abstraction called 'utility'. |
| 18638 | The difference principles says we must subsidise the costs of other people's choices [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The difference principle does not make any distinction between chosen and unchosen inequalities, ....but the difference principle requires that some people subsidise the costs of other people's choices. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.3.b.2) | |
| A reaction: We do this in education, allowing people to study things in which we can see little point. We subsidise public ceremonies which strike us as ridiculous. |
| 18635 | Social contract theories are usually rejected because there never was such a contract [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Social contract theories have all been subjected to the same criticism - that there never was such a state of nature, or such a contract. Hence neither citizens nor government are bound by it. Contracts only create obligations if they are actually agreed. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Even if they have been agreed in the past, why should subsequent generations be bound to them? Modern Germans aren't bound by their grandparents' oaths of allegiance to fascism. |
| 18630 | Utilitarianism is no longer a distinctive political position [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Modern utilitarianism, despite its radical heritage, no longer defines a distinctive political position. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.6) | |
| A reaction: This is his final sentence on the topic. I suppose utilitarianism exists as a moral theory at too high a level of generality to count as a political theory. |
| 18623 | The quest of the general good is partly undermined by people's past entitlements [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The existence of past entitlements on the part of particular people partially pre-empts, or constrains, the utilitarian quest to maximise the general good. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.3.a) | |
| A reaction: In other words, there is never a clean slate in politics (except in some hideously violent revolution). You might be able to justify to someone a withdrawal of their past entitlements. E.g. confiscating a stolen painting that was bought in ignorance. |
| 18628 | We shouldn't endorse preferences which reject equality, and show prejudice and selfishness [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Equality should enter into the very formation of our preferences. ....Prejudiced and selfish preferences should be excluded from the start, for they already reflect a failure to show equal consideration. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.5.b) | |
| A reaction: This is meant to block utilitarian summing of preferences like racism, but it feels like a rather desperate attempt to get righteous liberal values in at the beginning, where they can't be questioned. How can you justify equal respect and treatment? |
| 18629 | Using utilitarian principles to make decisions encourages cold detachment from people [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Acting directly on utilitarian grounds is counter-productive, for it encourages a contingent and detached attitude towards what should be whole-hearted personal and political commitments. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: I've always seen this as an objection to utilitarianism, but I now see that it is only an objection to the decision procedure. We should be warm-hearted and committed, in the knowledge that this will increase benefits to all. Hm. A bit schizoid. |
| 18637 | Utilitarianism is irrational if it tells you to trade in your rights and resources just for benefits [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is an irrational choice, for it is rational to ensure your basic rights and resources are protected, even if you thereby lessen your chance of receiving benefits above and beyond the basic goods that you seek to protect. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: [He's discussing Rawls] Utilitarians would obviously respond to this by saying that the rights and resources are needed to protect future benefits, so it would be short-termism to trade them in now. |
| 18663 | Modern liberalism has added personal privacy to our personal social lives [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Modern liberalism is concerned not only to protect the private sphere of social life, but also to carve out a realm within the private sphere where individuals can have privacy. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 7.2.b) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, he associates this development with the romantic movement, which designated social interaction as public and political, creating a need for true privacy. Privacy is the blessing and blight of the modern world. |
| 18632 | Liberalism tends to give priority to basic liberties [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: One way of differentiating liberalism is that it gives priority to the basic liberties. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.1.b) | |
| A reaction: [He is citing Rawls for this] This is not the same as extreme libertarianism, which makes liberty the only priority. The issue would be over which liberties count as 'basic'. Taxation would be a good test case. |
| 18656 | Marxists say liberalism is unjust, because it allows exploitation in the sale of labour [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental flaw of liberal justice, Marxists claim, is that it licences the continuation of the worker by the capitalist, since it licences the buying and selling labour. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 5.2.a) | |
| A reaction: I can't see that all sale of labour is exploitation, if (for example) the wage paid was extremely high (maybe even higher than the employer's wage, which is possible). So exploitation involves something more. |
| 18659 | The 'Kantian' view of the self misses the way it is embedded or situated in society [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Communitarians believe that the 'Kantian' view of the self is false, because it ignores the fact that the self is 'embedded' or 'situated' in existing social practices, so that we cannot always stand back and opt out of them. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: [Hegel and Charles Taylor 1979 seem to be the sources for this] I have several times been told that I am so typical of the culture I arose in that it is almost comical. This was quite disconcerting, but I got used to it, and now I love it. |
| 18660 | Communitarians say we should pay more attention to our history [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Communitarians like to say that political theory should pay more attention to the history of each culture. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 6.4.c) | |
| A reaction: I like this. Kylicka says communitarians tend not to do this, partly because history might reveal an unpleasant basis for present society (such as English country house life benefiting from slavery). The ignorance of history among politicians appals me. |
| 18657 | Communitarian states only encourage fairly orthodox ideas of the good life [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: A communitarian state can and should encourage people to adopt conceptions of the good that conform to the community's way of life, while discouraging conceptions of the good that conflict with it. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the conservative aspect of communitarianism which many people (notably liberals) find uncongenial. This conservatism is implicit in Aristotle's account of virtue. I have become more conservative to accommodate it. |
| 18649 | If everyone owned himself, that would prevent slavery [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The best way to prevent enslavement of one person to another is to give each person ownership over himself. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 4.2.c) | |
| A reaction: [The idea comes from Nozick, but Kymlicka is assessing how it should be understood] The best way to block any social evil like slavery is to make it unthinkable. Legislation is second best. Presumably I could sell myself into slavery (like Faust)? |
| 18640 | Libertarians like the free market, but they also think that the free market is just [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Not everyone who favours the free market is a libertarian, for they do not all share the libertarian view that the free market is inherently just. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 4.1.a) | |
| A reaction: Illuminating. It would appear that exploitation is possible within a strictly free market, so it seems unlikely that free markets are inherently just (unless you don't acknowledge that 'exploitation' is wrong). |
| 18651 | The most valuable liberties to us need not be the ones with the most freedom [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Different liberties promote different interests for many different reasons, and there is no reason to assume that the liberties which are most valuable to us are the ones with the most freedom. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a.iii) | |
| A reaction: As I grow older I come more and more to think that freedom is overvalued. But have you tried the other thing? We complacently take huge freedoms for granted. Be passionate about fundamental freedoms, and relaxed about the rest. |
| 18661 | Ancient freedom was free participation in politics, not private independence of life [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The liberty of the ancients was their active participation in the exercise of political power, not the peaceful enjoyment of personal independence. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 7.2.a) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. It takes a feat of imagination to grasp a world where the desire for freedom to sit at home and compile a database of philosophical ideas never even crossed anyone's mind. |
| 18633 | Equal opportunities seems fair, because your fate is from your choices, not your circumstances [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The ideology of equal opportunity seems fair to many people in our society because it ensures that people's fate is determined by their choices, rather than their circumstances. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Is it that we surmise that people have 'free will', and then engineer a situation where it can be exercised? Is it that the rest of us don't want to feel guilty when someone else's life goes awry (because it was 'their fault')? |
| 18634 | Equal opportunity arbitrarily worries about social circumstances, but ignores talents [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The prevailing view [of equal opportunity] only recognises differences in social circumstances, while ignoring differences in natural talents (or treating them as if they were a choice). This is an arbitrary limit on the theory's central intuition. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Of course we (society) can do a lot about your social circumstances, but very little about your talents, other than to develop them or thwart them. Talented children need more than mere 'opportunity'. |
| 18654 | Marxists say justice is unneeded in the truly good community [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Marxists believe that justice, far from being the first virtue of social institutions, is something that the truly good community has no need for. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that in the truly good community there are nothing but truly good individuals, which is taking social determinism to its limits. Are all the citizens of a bad community inherently bad? |
| 18652 | The Lockean view of freedom depends on whether you had a right to what is restricted [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: The Lockean camp defines freedom in terms of the exercise of our rights. Whether or not a restriction decreases our freedom depends on whether or not we had a right to do the restricted thing. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a.iii) | |
| A reaction: My first instinct is to be sympathetic to this, since a detached and general notion of 'freedom' strikes me as suspect. He offers the rival 'Spenserian' view of freedom as just having the choice. |
| 18655 | Justice corrects social faults, but also expresses respect to individuals as ends [Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Justice is more than a remedial virtue. It does remedy defects in social co-ordination, ...but it also expresses the respect individuals are owed as ends in themselves, not as mean's to someone's good, or even to the common good. | |
| From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: That is, I take it, that justice operates at two different levels in our theoretical social thinking. |
| 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. |