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22754
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Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus]
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Full Idea:
Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property.
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From:
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35)
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A reaction:
This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use.
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22755
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Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus]
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Full Idea:
Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others.
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From:
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69)
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A reaction:
This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone.
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22756
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If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus]
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Full Idea:
If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer.
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From:
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81)
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A reaction:
He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end.
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20713
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God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
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From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
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A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
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