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21547
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On Meinong's principles 'the existent round square' has to exist [Russell]
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Full Idea:
To my contention that, on his principles, 'the existent round square' exists, Meinong replies that it is existent but does not exist. I must confess that I see no difference between existing and being existent, and I have no more to say on this head.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (Review: Meinong 'Uber die Stellung...' [1907], p.93)
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A reaction:
Russell is obviously invoking the famously dubious ontological argument for God's existence. Normally impossible objects are rejected because of contradictions, but there might also be category mistakes. 'The slow square'.
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4366
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We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse]
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Full Idea:
Williams has expressed pessimism about the project of Aristotelian naturalism on the grounds that his conception of nature, and thereby of human nature, was normative, and that, in a scientific age, this is not a conception that we can take on board.
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From:
report of Bernard Williams (works [1971]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.11
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A reaction:
I think there is a compromise here. The existentialist denial of intrinsic human nature seems daft, but Aristotelians must grasp the enormous flexibility that is possible to human behaviour because of the open nature of rationality.
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15674
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One can universalise good advice, but that doesn't make it an obligation [Finlayson]
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Full Idea:
'Early to bed and early to rise' is a universalizable maxim, but, though it might be good advice, there is obviously no such obligation.
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From:
James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83)
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A reaction:
I take it that Kant's rule won't distinguish moral guidance from prudential guidance. Unfair, I think. I may be a lark, but when I universalise this maxim I see that it can't be willed as a universal rule, because we should tolerate the owls.
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