Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'III.12 On physiognomy' and 'Persons, Character and Morality'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

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?

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

7495	Apart from the fear, dying is an easy duty [Montaigne]
	Full Idea: If our fears did not lend it weight, dying would be one of our lighter duties.
	From: Michel de Montaigne (III.12 On physiognomy [1580], p.1191)
	A reaction: An Epicurean thought. 'Duties' is nice - presumably death qualifies as a duty, because Nature requires it of us (we each of us 'owe nature a death'). The remark appears to me to be true.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character

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.

23280	Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: The Kantians' omission of character is a condition of their ultimate insistence on the demands of impartial morality, just as it is a reason to find inadequate their account of the individual.
	From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II)
	A reaction: This is also why the Kantian account of virtue is inadequate, in comparison with the Aristotelian view.

23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism

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?