Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Moral Dilemmas Revisited' and 'Frege on Extensions from Concepts'

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4 ideas

18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content

3115	Are meaning and expressed concept the same thing? [Burge, by Segal]
	Full Idea: It is Burge's view that what a word means should be distinguished from the concept it expresses.
	From: report of Tyler Burge (Frege on Extensions from Concepts [1984]) by Gabriel M.A. Segal - A Slim Book about Narrow Content 3.2
	A reaction: Presumably the immediate meaning (e.g. of 'arthritis') is socially determined, while the concept is fixed by history? Or what?

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 5. Action Dilemmas / a. Dilemmas

22481	There is no restitution after a dilemma, if it only involved the agent, or just needed an explanation [Foot, by PG]
	Full Idea: The 'remainder' after a dilemma can't be a matter of apology and restitution, because the dilemma may only involve the agent's own life, and in the case of broken promises we only owe an explanation, if the breaking is justifiable.
	From: report of Philippa Foot (Moral Dilemmas Revisited [1995], p.183) by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: But what if someone has been financially ruined by it? If the agent feels guilty about that, is getting over it the rational thing to do? (Foot says that is an new obligation, and not part of the original dilemma).

22482	I can't understand how someone can be necessarily wrong whatever he does [Foot]
	Full Idea: I do not see how …we can know how to interpret the idea of a situation in which someone will necessarily be wrong whatever he does.
	From: Philippa Foot (Moral Dilemmas Revisited [1995], p.188)
	A reaction: Seems right. If you think of hideous dilemmas (frequent in wartime), there must always be a right thing to do (or two equally right things to do), even if the outcome is fairly hideous. Just distinguish the right from the good.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

7667	There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius.
	From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
	A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny.