34 ideas
| 14767 | The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 14764 | I am saturated with the spirit of physical science [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I am saturated, through and through, with the spirit of the physical sciences. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.1) |
| 21021 | Keep premises as weak as possible, to avoid controversial difficulties [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: One should always choose the weakest premises from which one's conclusion follows, rather than saddling the theory with thicker or more controversial premises. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: I like this because it connects the rather vague Ockham's Razor to the logical concept of Thinning. The key point is that a thinner set of premises that prove something will be more persuasive, because critics may reject premises instead of conclusion. |
| 14768 | Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Infallibility in scientific matters seems to me irresistibly comical. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.3) |
| 14765 | Association of ideas is the best philosophical idea of the prescientific age [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the association of ideas is, to my thinking, the finest piece of philosophical work of the prescientific ages. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 14766 | Duns Scotus offers perhaps the best logic and metaphysics for modern physical science [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The works of Duns Scotus have strongly influenced me. …His logic and metaphysics, torn away from its medievalism, …will go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 21007 | Storytelling is never neutral; some features of the world must be emphasised [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Storytelling is never neutral; the narrator always directs attention to some features of the world rather than others. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: The audience would be a bit stupid if it insisted on neutrality. |
| 21025 | Particularism gives no guidance for the future [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Situation ethics offers no guidance for the future. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: Not sure if Situation Ethics is the same as Particularism. Jonathan Danby famously champions the latter. |
| 21026 | Compassion is unreliable, because it favours people close to us [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Daniel Batson's important research has shown us that compassion is not reliable on its own, because it can easily give priority to people close to the self. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: In Britain animal charities receive vastly more money than children's charities, presumably for this very reason. Kittens - you've got to hate them. |
| 20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: In the twenty-first century, sovereignty, once the basis of the nation state, has become a relative concept. ...Powerlessness is the key word of our time. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
| A reaction: The point is that nation states now have limited power, in the face of larger unions, multinational companies, and global problems. |
| 21019 | Social contracts assume equal powers among the participants [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: All contract theories, including Rawls's, assume a rough equality of physical and mental power among the participants. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 4) |
| 20090 | Today it seems almost impossible to learn the will of the people [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'electoral') | |
| A reaction: Our recent Brexit referendum didn't do the job, because it was confined to a single question. Van Reybrouck laughs at the idea of expressing it through a polling both. How about a council of 500, drawn by lots? Meet for three months. |
| 20087 | There are no united monolothic 'peoples', and no 'national gut feelings' [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as one monolithic 'people' (every society has its diversity), nor is there anything that could be described as a 'national gut feeling'. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'populism') | |
| A reaction: Rousseau yearned for a republic no bigger than Geneva. I don't see why we should give up on the general will in huge modern societies. It is likely, though, to be an anodyne lowest common denominator. No bad thing, perhaps. |
| 20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Efficiency does not automatically generate legitimacy, and faith in the technocrat melts away as soon as spending cuts are implemented. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'democracy') | |
| A reaction: They can hang on to legitimacy if they can come up with some technical mumbo-jumbo like 'monetarism' which the people will swallow. |
| 20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Technocracy is a system where experts are charged with looking after the public interest. ...Technocrats are managers who replace politicians, so they can concentrate on long-term solutions and announce unpopular measures. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'technocracy') | |
| A reaction: I like technocrats. They just need to be accountable. In the UK we have far more respect for the governor of the Bank of England than for any politician. |
| 21011 | We shouldn't focus on actual preferences, which may be distorted by injustices [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: When society puts things out of reach for people, they typically learn not to want those things. ..By defining the social goal in terms of satisfaction of actual preferences, utilitarian approaches often reinforce the status quo, which may be very unjust. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: Maximising happiness is potentially very paternalistic, whereas preference satisfaction is not, which aligns utilitarianism better with liberalism. It is notorious that slaves can be contented with their slavery, and battered wives can remain loyal. |
| 20085 | Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is the least bad form of all governments precisely because it attempts to find a healthy balance between legitimacy and efficiency. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a widespread feeling that democracy is declining in efficiency, and that may be because our remoteness from government decreases legitimacy, so we have less commitment to getting things done. |
| 20095 | A referendum result arises largely from ignorance [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: In a referendum you ask everyone to vote on a subject that usually only a few know anything about. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 'remedies') | |
| A reaction: Tell me about it! I was forced to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and felt thoroughly out of my depth on such a complex economic question. |
| 20094 | You don't really govern people if you don't involve them [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Even with the best of intentions, those who govern the people without involving them, govern them only in a limited sense. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 intro) | |
| A reaction: But if they are highly involved, who is governing who? Do we want the people to become happier about being governed, or do we want them more involved in doing the governing? |
| 20093 | In the 18th century democratic lots lost out to elections, that gave us a non-hereditary aristocracy [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: The drawing of lots, the most democratic of all political instruments, lost out in the eighteenth century to elections, a procedure that was not invented as a democratic instrument, but as a means of bringing a new non-hereditary aristocracy to power. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'democratisation') | |
| A reaction: This is the basic thesis of Van Reybrouck's book. He argues for the extensive use of lots ('sortition') for getting people involved in modern democracies. I love the idea that in a good democracy you get an occasional chance to rule. |
| 20091 | Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Bernard Manin (1995) revealed how, immediately after the American and French revolutions, the electoral-representative system was chosen with the intention of keeping at bay the tumult of democracy. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'procedure') | |
| A reaction: At the time America and France were two of the largest countries in the world, and communication and transport were slow. That has changed. |
| 21008 | Liberalism does not need a comprehensive account of value [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The role of political liberalism in my theory requires me to prescind from offering any comprehensive account of value. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: Obviously liberalism has values, but they are the minimum ones of freedom and respect. Liberals have to tolerate some fairly ugly and miserable societies. Can liberals intervene in family life? |
| 21012 | Women are often treated like children, and not respected for their choices [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Women are often treated as passive dependents, creatures to be cared for (or not), rather than as independent human beings deserving respect for their choices. In other words they are often infantilized. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: Her prime example is from India, but you see the same thing in more subtle forms in the UK, especially among older people, and especially in art galleries. |
| 21015 | Negative liberty is incoherent; all liberties, to do and to be, require the prevention of interference [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The very idea of 'negative liberty' ...is an incoherent idea: all liberties are positive, meaning liberties to do or to be something, which all require the inhibition of interference by others. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: This rejects Isaiah Berlin's well-known claim that negative liberties are good, but positive liberties are far too dangerous. |
| 21017 | Political freedom is an incoherent project, because some freedoms limit other freedoms [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: It is unclear whether the idea of promoting freedom is even a coherent political project. Some freedoms limit others. The freedom of rich people to make large donations to political campaigns can limit the equal worth of the right to vote. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 4) | |
| A reaction: It is not just American right-wingers who over-emphasise 'freedom'. French philosophy seems to be riddled with the same thing. |
| 21016 | Political and civil rights are not separate from economic and social rights [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: My approach rejects the distinction, common in the human rights movement, between 'first-generation rights' (political and civil) and 'second-generation rights' (economic and social). The second group are preconditions of the first group. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: [last sentence compressed] This sounds like the sort of point Marx argued for. Nowadays it is feminists who make this point most strongly. |
| 21009 | Capabilities: Life, Health, Safety, Mental life, Love, Planning, Joining in, Nature, Play, Control [Nussbaum, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Ten Capabilities: Life (decent), Health (reproduction, shelter), Safety, Mental life (with education), Love (relationships), Planning (with free beliefs), Joining in (and non-discrimination), Nature (relations to), Play, Control (politics and property). | |
| From: report of Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: She gives her crucial list in rather wordy form. To have impact it needs to be reduced to brief simple slogans. |
| 21010 | Justice requires that the ten main capabilities of people are reasonably enabled [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The basic claim of my account of social justice is this: respect for human dignity requires that citizens be placed above an ample (specified) threshold of capability in all ten of the areas. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: [The capabilities are given, briefly, in Idea 21009] The one word that bothers me here is 'dignity'. It is very vague, and can, I think, be reduced to much clearer and more obvious concepts. A person lacks dignity when they vomit, in ordinary usage. |
| 21013 | Capabilities are grounded in bare humanity and agency; qualifying as rational is not needed [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The capabilities approach grounds rights claims in bare human birth and minimal agency, not in rationality or any other specific property, something that permits it to recognise the equal human rights of people with cognitive disabilities. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: She says elsewhere that she also sees animals as included in the capabilities approach. This is a rejection of the Kantian grounds for rights (by a well-known Aristotelian). |
| 21014 | Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: A prominent idea, common in the U.S., sees rights as barriers against interfering state action. ...The Capabilities Approach, by contrast, insists that all entitlements involve an affirmative task for government, to actively support capabilities. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: This makes her approach very left wing, by U.S. standards, because it needs higher taxation and a degree of government paternalism. Her approach strikes me as an excellent agenda for a fairly interventionist European liberal party. |
| 21020 | Any establishment belief system is incompatible with full respect for all citizens [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The idea of equal respect is difficult or impossible to render compatible with a religious establishment, even one that is benign and noncoercive. Any established church (or government secularism) denigrates nonbelievers, by stating they are an out-group. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 4) | |
| A reaction: This sort of applies to membership of anything. She is sort of right, but there is no reason in principle why full respect should not be accorded to any out-group. |
| 21023 | We should respect animals in the way that we respect the animal nature in humans [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: If we show respect to our own animal natures, it is simply inconsistent, and a kind of vicious self-promoting of a sort to which Kantians are especially opposed, to refuse the same respect to our fellow creatures. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: Nussbaum says Kant is hopeless on animals, but Christine Korsgaard offers this Kantian approach that demands genuine respect for animals, even though they are not considered rational. Nussbaum says animals are agents. Did Kant respect our animality? |
| 21024 | It may be no harm to kill an animal which cannot plan for its future [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The painless killing of an animal of a species that does not make plans extending into the future may not be a harm: this depends on how we think about the harm of death. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: Very old human beings may have no plans for the future. I, on the other hand, have got lots and lots of plans. Definitely. No one can specify the harm of death. How can it be distinguished from the harm of not being born? |
| 21022 | The Capabilities Approach sees animals as agents, not just as having feelings [Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: The Capabilities Approach sees animals as agents, not as receptacles of pleasure or pain. | |
| From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8) | |
| A reaction: This is in opposition to the utilitarian view. The key consequence is that animals can be victims of injustice, as well as of cruelty. Nice. |