7 ideas
21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom. | |
From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5 | |
A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue. |
20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117) | |
A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties. |
5122 | Maybe consequentialism is a critique of ordinary morality, rather than describing it [Harman] |
Full Idea: Consequentialism may be put forward not as an attempt to capture intuitive folk morality but rather as a critique of ordinary tuitions. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
A reaction: It is certainly true that most people are concerned with why an action was performed, and (after initial anger) are prepared to forgive an unintended disaster. We have no moral objections to earthquakes, which have bad consequences. |
5123 | Maybe there is no such thing as character, and the virtues and vices said to accompany it [Harman] |
Full Idea: It may be the case that there is no such thing as character, no ordinary character traits of the sort people think there are, none of the usual moral virtues and vices. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
A reaction: This would be a devastating fact for virtue theory, if it were true. I don't believe it. He thinks patterns of behaviour result from circumstances, but we give accurate and detailed pictures of people's characters (esp. in novels). |
5124 | If a person's two acts of timidity have different explanations, they are not one character trait [Harman] |
Full Idea: If Herbert is disposed to not speak in history class (but not other subjects), and explanation of this is different from his avoidance of roller coaster rides, then these two dispositions are not special cases of a single character trait. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.2) | |
A reaction: A basic Harman argument for denying the existence of character (and hence of virtues). I just say that character traits are more complex than his caricature of them. If I keep imagining disaster and humiliation for myself, that is a character trait. |
5125 | Virtue ethics might involve judgements about the virtues of actions, rather than character [Harman] |
Full Idea: There are variants of virtue ethics that do not require character traits in the ordinary sense. For example, moral thinking might be explicated by appeal to judgements about whether particular actions are just or courageous or whatever. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.7.1.1) | |
A reaction: A very interesting proposal (from Judith Jarvis Thomson). This would flatly reject Aristotle, and one presumes that the judgement about the virtue of the action would largely be a matter of pondering cultural conventions (or, perhaps, consequences). |
6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110) | |
A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'. |