Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Ethical Studies', 'The Power of Words' and 'works'

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5 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness

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).

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

20239	Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche]
	Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious.
	From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038
	A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism

23829	National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil]
	Full Idea: Those in command see their duty as defending order, without which no social life can survive; and the only order they conceive is the existing one.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.249)
	A reaction: She sympathises with them, because a new order is such an unknown. But it always struck me as weird that traditions are preserved because they are traditions, and not because they are good. (My old school, for example!).

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 14. Nationalism

23828	National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil]
	Full Idea: What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralise other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.244)
	A reaction: It's true. No nation gains prestige because of the happy lives of its citizens, or the creativity of its culture.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / a. Just wars

23827	Modern wars are fought in the name of empty words which are given capital letters [Weil]
	Full Idea: For our contemporaries the role of Helen in the Trojan War is is played by words with capital letters. …When empty words are given capital letters, then, on the slightest pretext, men will begin shedding blood for them and piling up ruin in their name.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.241)
	A reaction: This seems particularly true of the 1930s, where specific dogmatic ideologies seemed to grip and divide people. Simple aggressive nationalism seems to be the cause of current wars, now the fear of Communism has diminished.