|
5121
|
Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
|
|
Full Idea:
Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
|
|
From:
Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.
|
|
4800
|
Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos]
|
|
Full Idea:
Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction.
|
|
From:
report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1
|
|
A reaction:
The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms.
|