Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Killing and Letting Die' and 'Reference and Essence: seven appendices'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

15201	That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
	Full Idea: The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact.
	From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b
	A reaction: He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / g. Degrees of vagueness

14742	It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x [Salmon,N]
	Full Idea: Insofar as identity seems vague, it is provably mistaken. If it is vague whether x and y are identical (as in the Ship of Theseus), then x,y is definitely not the same as x,x, since the first pair is indeterminate and the second pair isn't.
	From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence: seven appendices [2005], App I)
	A reaction: [compressed; Gareth Evans 1978 made a similar point] This strikes me as begging the question in the Ship case, since we are shoehorning the new ship into either the slot for x or the slot for y, but that was what we couldn’t decide. No rough identity?

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference

18885	Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism [Salmon,N]
	Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam made unsubstantiated claims, indeed false claims, to the effect that the theory of direct reference has nontrivial essentialist import.
	From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence: seven appendices [2005], Pref to Exp Ed)
	A reaction: Kripke made very few claims, and is probably innocent of the charge. Most people agree with Salmon that you can't derive metaphysics from a theory of reference.

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 5. Action Dilemmas / c. Omissions

4692	It is not true that killing and allowing to die (or acts and omissions) are morally indistinguishable [Foot]
	Full Idea: Many philosophers (e.g. Rachels) have argued that there is no morally relevant distinction between killing and allowing to die (or the related 'acts and omissions'),..as in not sending food, or sending poisoned food. I disagree.
	From: Philippa Foot (Killing and Letting Die [1985], p.78)
	A reaction: It appears that some omissions are worse than acts. It is more honest to just shoot an injured person, than to walk away and leave them to die. A range of cases.

4694	Making a runaway tram kill one person instead of five is diverting a fatal sequence, not initiating one [Foot]
	Full Idea: If a runaway tram is heading towards a track on which five people are standing, and there is someone who can switch the points, diverting it onto a track where there is one person,...this is diverting a fatal sequence, not starting a new one.
	From: Philippa Foot (Killing and Letting Die [1985], p.85)
	A reaction: Suppose the one person was of immense community value, or someone you personally hated? Clearly she is interested in the agent's virtue, rather than the actual consequences.

25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights

4693	The right of non-interference (with a 'negative duty'), and the right to goods/services ('positive') [Foot]
	Full Idea: There are rights to non-interference (and their corresponding "negative duties"), and the rights to goods and services (with corresponding "positive duties"). Interference usually needs more justification than withholding goods.
	From: Philippa Foot (Killing and Letting Die [1985], p.82)
	A reaction: This invites the question of which is the stronger, and whether paternalism can overrule non-interference, or an expectation of self-sufficiency overrule the positive rights.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series

22899	'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
	Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
	From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
	A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?