6 ideas
| 14361 | Lewis says indicative conditionals are truth-functional [Lewis, by Jackson] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Stalnaker, Lewis holds that indicative conditionals have the truth conditions of material conditionals. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973]) by Frank Jackson - Conditionals 'Further' | |
| A reaction: Thus Lewis only uses the possible worlds account for subjunctive conditionals, where Stalnaker uses it for both. Lewis is defending the truth-functional account for the indicative conditionals. |
| 8434 | In good counterfactuals the consequent holds in world like ours except that the antecedent is true [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| Full Idea: According to Lewis, a counterfactual holds when the consequent is true in possible worlds very like our own except for the fact that the antecedent is true. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.213 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the world being very like our own would make it unlikely that there would be anything else to cause the consequent, apart from the counterfactual antecedent. |
| 3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
| Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
| From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
| A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |
| 22405 | Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of negative utilitarianism (that we should concern ourselves with the minimisation of suffering, rather than the maximisation of happiness) ...means we should support a tyrant who explodes the world, to prevent infinite future misery. | |
| From: J.J.C. Smart (Outline of a System of Utilitarianism [1973], 5) | |
| A reaction: That only seems to imply that the negative utilitarian rule needs supplementary rules. We are too fond of looking for one single moral rule that guides everything. |
| 22404 | Any group interested in ethics must surely have a sentiment of generalised benevolence [Smart] |
| Full Idea: A utilitarian can appeal to the sentiment of generalised benevolence, which is surely present in any group with whom it is profitable to discuss ethical questions. | |
| From: J.J.C. Smart (Outline of a System of Utilitarianism [1973], I) | |
| A reaction: But ethics is not intended only for those who are interested in ethics. If this is the basics of ethics, then we must leave the mafia to pursue its sordid activities without criticism. Their lack of sympathy seems to be their good fortune. |
| 9419 | A law of nature is a general axiom of the deductive system that is best for simplicity and strength [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A contingent generalization is a law of nature if and only if it appears as a theorem (or axiom) in each of the true deductive systems that achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973], 3.3) |