6 ideas
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 20595 | You can't distribute goods from behind a veil, because their social meaning is unclear [Walzer, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Walzer says behind the veil of ignorance there would be no way to know how a particular good should be distributed, because we would not know the social meaning of the good in question. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian' | |
| A reaction: Is Rawls actually proposing to decide details of distribution from behind the veil? There is just the maximin principle. What that means in practice would surely come once the society was under way. |
| 20592 | Complex equality restricts equalities from spilling over, like money influencing politics and law [Walzer, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Complex equality tries to keep advantages in one area (such as money) from translating into advantages in politics or before the law. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 3 'Complex' | |
| A reaction: Put like that, Walzer's complex equality becomes very interesting, and pinpoints a major problem of our age, where discrepancies of wealth have become staggeringly large at the top end. |
| 20549 | Equality is complex, with different spheres of equality where different principles apply [Walzer, by Swift] |
| Full Idea: Michael Walzer argues for 'complex equality', saying different goods belong to different distributive 'spheres', each with its own distributive principles. | |
| From: report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 3 'Egalitarian' | |
| A reaction: Sounds interesting. Equality seems to make different demands when it concerns basic food for survival, or fine wines. You can spend your money freely, but hording in a crisis is frowned on. |