7 ideas
1457 | Morality requires a minimum commitment to the self [Rashdall] |
Full Idea: A bare minimum of metaphysical belief about the self is found to be absolutely presupposed in the very idea of morality. | |
From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) | |
A reaction: This may not be true of virtue theory, where we could have a whole creature which lacked any sense of personhood, but yet had clear virtues and vices in its social functioning. Even if choices are central to morality, that might not need a self. |
6674 | All moral judgements ultimately concern the value of ends [Rashdall] |
Full Idea: All moral judgements are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. | |
From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], VII.I) | |
A reaction: I am increasingly struck by this, especially when observing that it is the great gap in Kant's theory. For some odd reason, he gives being rational the highest possible value. Why? Nietzsche is good on this. 'Eudaimonia' seems a good start, to me. |
6673 | Ideal Utilitarianism is teleological but non-hedonistic; the aim is an ideal end, which includes pleasure [Rashdall] |
Full Idea: My view, called Ideal Utilitarianism, combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of ethical ends; actions are right or wrong as they produce an ideal end, which includes, but is not limited to, pleasure. | |
From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], VII.I) | |
A reaction: I certainly think that if you are going to be a consequentialist, then it is ridiculous to limit the end to pleasure, as it is an 'open question' as to whether we judge pleasures or pains to be good or bad. I am fond of beauty, goodness and truth, myself. |
22001 | The real will of the cooperative will replace the 'will of the people' [Marx] |
Full Idea: Under collective property, the so called will of the people disappears in order to make way for the real will of the cooperative. | |
From: Karl Marx (Grundrisse [1876], p.563), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 10 | |
A reaction: [from an 1874 note on Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy'] So how do you settle on the 'real' will of a cooperative? The travesty is when a ruling elite decide that, without consultation. An institution is needed. This is still a social contract. |
4398 | An event causes another just if the second event would not have happened without the first [Lewis, by Psillos] |
Full Idea: Lewis gives an account of causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals (roughly, an event c causes an event e iff if c had not happened then e would not have happened either). | |
From: report of David Lewis (works [1973]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation Intro | |
A reaction: This feels wrong to me. It is a version of Humean constant conjunction, but counterfactuals are too much a feature of our minds, and not sufficiently a feature of the world, to do this job. Tricky. |
1458 | Conduct is only reasonable or unreasonable if the world is governed by reason [Rashdall] |
Full Idea: Absolutely reasonable or unreasonable conduct could not exist in a world which was not itself the product of reason or governed by its dictates. | |
From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) |
1459 | Absolute moral ideals can't exist in human minds or material things, so their acceptance implies a greater Mind [Rashdall, by PG] |
Full Idea: An absolute moral ideal cannot exist in material things, or in the minds of individual people, so belief in it requires belief in a Mind which contains the ideal and is its source. | |
From: report of Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) by PG - Db (ideas) |