Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology', 'Nietzsche's Immoralism' and 'The Definition of Good'

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5 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
3158 Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett]
     Full Idea: Intentional theory is vacuous as psychology because it presupposes and does not explain rationality or intelligence.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.15?)
     A reaction: Virtually every philosophical theory seems to founder because it presupposes something like the thing it is meant to explain. I agree that 'intentionality' is a slightly airy concept that would probably reduce to something better.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 3. Intentional Stance
3159 Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett]
     Full Idea: Intentional systems don't really have beliefs and desires, but one can explain and predict their behaviour by ascribing beliefs and desires to them. This strategy is pragmatic, not right or wrong.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.7?)
     A reaction: If the ascription of beliefs and desires explains behaviour, then that is good grounds for thinking they might be real features of the brain, and even if that is not so, they are real enough as abstractions from brain events, like the 'economic climate'.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
22474 Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot]
     Full Idea: Moral, as opposed to aesthetic, evaluation does require some distinction between actions for which we are responsible and those for which we are not responsible.
     From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.154)
     A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this, but difficult to give a precise account of responsibility, probably because it is not an all-or-nothing matter. If we accept responsibility for our controlled actions, why not for our considered aesthetic judgements?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / c. Particularism
18671 The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing]
     Full Idea: The ground for an attitude lies not in some other ethical concept, goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of what we pronounce good. ...We shall not be better off if we interpolate an indefinable characteristic of goodness besides.
     From: A.C. Ewing (The Definition of Good [1948], p.172), quoted by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 1.4
     A reaction: This is a forerunner of Scanlon's Buck-Passing theory of the source of value (in other properties). I approve of this approach. If I say 'actually this very strong cheese is really good', I'm not adding goodness to the cheese.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / c. Justice
22472 The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot]
     Full Idea: I wonder whether the practice of justice may not absolutely require a certain recognition of equality between human beings, not a pretence of the equality of talents, but something deeper.
     From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.152)
     A reaction: {My 'something deeper' is expressed by Foot in a quotation from Gertrude Stein]. This may well be the most fundamental division which runs across a society - between those who accept and those reject human equality.