16 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne. | |
| From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced. |
| 8013 | In the Reformation, morality became unconditional but irrational, individually autonomous, and secular [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Three concepts about morality emerge from the Reformation period: that moral rules are unconditional demands that lack rational justification; that moral agents are sovereign in choices; and that secular powers have their own norms and justifications. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: I get the impression that a rather frank admission of the role of self-interest emerged at that time as well. It is only in the late seventeenth century that the possibility of a secular altruism begins to be investigated. But there's Shakespeare... |
| 8021 | The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: John Lilburne, the Leveller, 'Free-Born John', was the most important of them. They mainly fought for rights of religious conscience, but it quickly escalated into a demand for economic and social rights. It spread to France and the United States. |
| 5040 | Necessary truths can be analysed into original truths; contingent truths are infinitely analysable [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Derivative truths are of two sorts: some are analysed into original truths, others admit of an infinite process of analysis. The former are necessary, the latter are contingent. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.108) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing proposal. Hume would presumably see contingent truths as being analysed until you reach 'impressions'. Analysis of necessary truths soon comes to the blinding light of what is obvious, but analysis of contingency never gets there. |
| 13159 | Only God sees contingent truths a priori [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Only God sees contingent truths a priori. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.95) | |
| A reaction: This because everything is interconnected, and the whole picture must be seen to understand a contingent truth. |
| 5039 | If non-existents are possible, their existence would replace what now exists, which cannot therefore be necessary [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If certain possibles never exist, then existing things are not always necessary; otherwise it would be impossible for other things to exist instead of them, and so all things that never exist would be impossible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.106) | |
| A reaction: A neat argument, though it is not self-evident that when possibles came into existence they would have to replace what is already there. Can't something be possible, but only in another world, because this one is already booked? |
| 8006 | When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: When Aristotle speaks of the soul we could very often retain his meaning by speaking of personality. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: MacIntyre contrasts this strongly with Plato's dualist view. Famously Aristotle thinks the soul is the 'form' of the body, but this implies that he also includes the higher-level functions of the body. Soul is character? |
| 8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The sophist tradition failed to distinguish the difference between the concept of a man who stands outside and is able to question the conventions of some one given social order, and the concept of a man who stands outside social life as such. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: A very nice distinction. Compare foreigners in Athens with Diogenes of Sinope, who renounced all cities. This is the germ of MacIntyre's view that morality is essentially dependent on some sort of social order. He is a reviver of virtue theory. |
| 8012 | The value/fact logical gulf is misleading, because social facts involve values [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: One reason why it is highly misleading to talk of a logical gulf between value and fact....is that we cannot characterize the social life of a tribe in their factual terms and escape their evaluations. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: Personally I like the objection that facts about functions cannot avoid the value of good functions, but this is very good. It is much better than simply trying to find a specific counterexample, such as facts about promises. Values just are facts. |
| 8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The name 'eudaimonia' is badly but inevitably translated by 'happiness', badly because it includes both the notion of behaving well and the notion of faring well. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that it does not include the notion of feeling good. Aristotle, however, concludes that pleasure is part of eudaimonia. I take our 'happiness' to be an internal notion, while the Greek word is an external notion. |
| 8001 | 'Dikaiosune' is justice, but also fairness and personal integrity [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The Greek 'dikaiosune' is inadequately translated as 'justice', but also as any other word; it combines the notion of fairness in externals with that of personal integrity in a way that no English word does. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: 'Dikaiosune' is said to be the main topic of Plato's 'Republic'. Plato seems to have meant it to cover whatever makes a good character. Justice in behaviour presumably flows from internal justice of character (which is, roughly, inner harmony). |
| 8023 | My duties depend on my identity, which depends on my social relations [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: I cannot answer the question 'What ought I to do?' until I have answered the question 'Who am I?', and any answer to this question will specify my place in a nexus of social relationships. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of the modern critique of deontological ethics coming from revived virtue theory. As it stands, MacIntyre's idea sounds contractual, but I think he intends it in a more organic way. I am a fan. |
| 8022 | I am naturally free if I am not tied to anyone by a contract [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The essence of the claim to natural rights is that no one has a right against me unless he can cite some contract, my consent to it, and his performance of his obligations under it. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This has become the foundation of western democracy, and the rebellious teenager's charter. Children have not consented to a contract with their parents. Close and loving relationships cease to be contractual. |
| 8031 | Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: It is notorious that adherents of theories about natural rights or natural laws offer lists of rights or laws which differ in substance from each other. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: There seems to have been a consensus early on that self-defence was a natural right, but divergence presumably occurs when you get bolder and more complex. There is a lot of divergence over which is Shakespeare's best play. |
| 5041 | God does everything in a perfect way, and never acts contrary to reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We can regard it as certain that everything is done by God in the most perfect way, that he does nothing which is contrary to reason. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.109) | |
| A reaction: The famous optimism which Voltaire laughed at in 'Candide'. I can't help thinking that there is an ideal of God being ABOVE reason. We reason, and give reasons, because we are unsure, and life is a struggle. The highest ideal is mystically self-evident. |
| 8008 | The Bible is a story about God in which humans are incidental characters [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The Bible is a story about God in which human beings appear as incidental characters. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Very illuminating. He creates man, is betrayed by man, drowns him and starts again, sends a redeemer who gets murdered, and finally enlightens a small band who continue the uphill struggle to promote God's way. What next? |