5655
|
Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton]
|
|
Full Idea:
For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self.
|
|
From:
report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16
|
|
A reaction:
Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452).
|
20445
|
Levinas says Marxism is the replacement of individualist ethics, by solidarity and sociality [Levinas, by Critchley]
|
|
Full Idea:
For Levinas, Marxism is the absorption of the ethical in the socioeconomic, and so it is the disappearance of the face-to-face relation and the privileging of relations of solidarity and anonymous sociality, which he calls 'socialism'.
|
|
From:
report of Emmanuel Levinas (works [1956]) by Simon Critchley - Impossible Objects: interviews 1
|
|
A reaction:
Startling, if you are not used to this sort of thing. If you are in trouble, I should help you, not because you are you, or a human being, but because you are a member of my group? So what about the Good Samaritan? Or solidarity with humanity? Animals?
|
16745
|
No one even knows the nature and properties of a fly - why it has that colour, or so many feet [Bacon,R]
|
|
Full Idea:
No one is so wise regarding the natural world as to know with certainty all the truths that concern the nature and properties of a single fly, or to know the proper causes of its color and why it has so many feet, neither more nor less.
|
|
From:
Roger Bacon (Opus Maius (major works) [1254], I.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
|
|
A reaction:
Pasnau quotes this in the context of 'occult' qualities. It is scientific essentialism, because Bacon clearly takes it that the explanation of these things would be found within the essence of the fly, if we could only get at it.
|