11 ideas
| 3539 | Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: For Parfit all personal identity really amounts to is a chain of experiences and other psychological features causally related to each other in 'direct' sorts of ways. | |
| From: report of Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 10.5 | |
| A reaction: When summarised like this, it strikes me that Parfit is just false to our experience, whatever Hume may say. I suspect that Parfit (and those like him) concentrate too much on rather passive perceptual experience, and neglect the will. |
| 1393 | One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: If I say 'It will not be me, but one of my future selves', I do not imply that I will be that future self. He is one of my later selves, and I am one of his earlier selves. There is no underlying person we both are. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §5) | |
| A reaction: The problem here seems to be explaining why I should care about my later self, if it isn't me. If the answer is only that it will be psychologically very similar to me, then I would care more about my current identical twin than about my future self. |
| 1392 | If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons. |
| 1391 | Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6) | |
| A reaction: This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 3785 | You can't separate acts from the people performing them [Glover] |
| Full Idea: A mistake of consequentialists is to treat actions as though they can somehow be isolated from the people performing them. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) | |
| A reaction: I agree. The weather produces consequences. Morality is about people. Crocodiles, for example, are exempt. |
| 3786 | Aggression in defence may be beneficial but morally corrupting [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Forming the intention to use nuclear retaliation if attacked may both be the best way to avoid the catastrophe of nuclear war and at the same time be morally corrupting. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) | |
| A reaction: A famous moment in 2017 when Jeremy Corbyn refused to say he would be willing to use the weapons, if elected. It would be hard to sustain a determination to do it, and then reject it at the crucial moment. |
| 3784 | Duty prohibits some acts, whatever their consequences [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The deontological view is that some acts are absolutely prohibited, regardless of consequences. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) |
| 3782 | Satisfaction of desires is not at all the same as achieving happiness [Glover, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Objections to utilitarianism as maximisation of preferences: faded past desires or the desires of the dead; obtaining desires and happiness are different; fewer desires are easier to satisfy; pain is good if it can be removed. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Two) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3787 | Rule-utilitarianism is either act-utilitarianism, or not really utilitarian [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Rule-utilitarianism seems either to collapse into act-utilitarianism, or else it is only partly utilitarian. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Six) |
| 3783 | How can utilitarianism decide the ideal population size? [Glover] |
| Full Idea: There are deep problems for utilitarianism in trying to work out what the ideal population size would be. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Four) |