13804
|
A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
A property P is an essential property of an object x iff x could not exist and lack P, that is, as they say, iff x has P at every world at which x exists.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
This immediately places the existence of x outside the normal range of its properties, so presumably 'existence is not a predicate', but that dictum may be doubted. As it stands this definition will include trivial and vacuous properties.
|
13806
|
Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
The main groups of trivially essential properties are (a) existence, self-identity, or their consequences in S5; and (b) properties possessed in virtue of some de dicto necessary truth.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
|
|
A reaction:
He adds 'extraneously essential' properties, which also strike me as being trivial, involving relations. 'Is such that 2+2=4' or 'is such that something exists' might be necessary, but they don't, I would say, have anything to do with essence.
|
13809
|
One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
In the case of artefacts, there is an essentialism about original matter; for instance, it would be said of any particular bronze statue that it could not have been cast from a totally different quantity of bronze.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
Forbes isn't endorsing this, and it doesn't sound convincing. He quotes the thought 'I wish I had made this pot from a different piece of clay'. We might corrupt a statue by switching bronze, but I don't think the sculptor could do so.
|
23279
|
It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
I want to emphasise the basic importance of the ordinary idea of a self or person which undergoes changes of character, as opposed to dissolving a changing person into a series of 'selves'.
|
|
From:
Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] He mentions Derek Parfit for the rival view. Williams has the Aristotelian view, that a person has an essential nature, which endures through change, and explains that change. But that needs some non-essential character traits.
|
23278
|
For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
The basic bearer of value for Utilitarianism is the state of affairs, and hence, when the relevant causal differences have been allowed for, it cannot make any further difference who produces a given state of affairs.
|
|
From:
Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], I)
|
|
A reaction:
Which is morally better, that I water your bed of flowers, or that it rains? Which is morally better, that I water them from love, or because you threaten me with a whip?
|