8 ideas
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. |
21836 | Philosophers after Aristotle endorsed the medical analogy for eudaimonia [Nussbaum, by Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Nussbaum says the post-Aristotelian philosophers did much more than simply advancing and refining Aristotle's ethics. They advanced eudaimonics by explicitly endorsing the medical analogy. | |
From: report of Martha Nussbaum (The Therapy of Desire [1994]) by Owen Flanagan - The Really Hard Problem 4 'Eudaimoncs' | |
A reaction: Since Aristotle is all about the successful functioning of the psuche, this idea is obviously implicit in his original texts. It needs a positive concept of mental health, and not a mere absence of mental illness. See the Mindapples campaign. |
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) |