23221
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The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
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Full Idea:
Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain.
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From:
Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
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A reaction:
Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out.
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23282
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If all that matters in morality is motive and intention, that makes moral luck irrelevant [Williams,B]
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Full Idea:
The idea that one's whole life can be immune to luck has not prevailed (e.g. in Christianity), …but its place has been taken by the idea that moral value can be immune, …if it is motive that counts, and in actions it is not worldly changes but intention.
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From:
Bernard Williams (Moral Luck [1976], p.20)
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A reaction:
[compressed] That is, that Kant offers a way to make luck irrelevant to morality. Williams disagrees, but says at least Kant offers 'solace to a sense of the world's unfairness'.
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