10 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!). |
| 3444 | If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: If the action is not caused by some other event, and it is not causeless, this leaves the possibility that it is caused by something else instead, and this something can only be the agent, the man. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |
| 3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: According to Hobbes, if we fully know what a man desires and believes, and we know the state of his physical stimuli, we may logically deduce what he will try to do. But Kant says no such statements can ever imply what a man will do. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.32) |
| 9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm holds the quaint doctrine that human freedom entails an absence of causal determination; a free action is a miracle. This gives no basis for doubting that animals have such freedom; and why would we care whether we can interrupt the causal order? | |
| From: comment on Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964]) by Harry G. Frankfurt - Freedom of the Will and concept of a person §IV | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Chisholm is the spokesman for 'agent causation', Frankfurt for freedom as second-level volitions. I'm with Frankfurt. The belief in 'agents' and 'free will' may sound plausible, until the proposal is spelled out in causal terms. |
| 3442 | Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: The free will problem is that humans seem to be responsible, but this seems to conflict with the idea that every event is caused by some other event, and it also conflicts with the view that the action is not caused at all. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.24) |
| 3443 | Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: If a flood of desires causes a weak-willed man to give in to temptation, …the question now becomes, is he responsible for the beliefs and desires he happens to have? | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.25) |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
| 23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |
| 3445 | Causation among objects relates either events or states [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Between natural objects we may say that causation is a relation between events or states of affairs. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |