20 ideas
16756 | Substantial forms must exist, to explain the stability of metals like silver and tin [Albertus Magnus] |
Full Idea: There is no reason why the matter in any natural thing should be stable in its nature, if it is not completed by a substantial form. But we see that silver is stable, and tin and other metals. Therefore they will seem to be perfected by substantial forms. | |
From: Albertus Magnus (On Minerals [1260], III.1.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.2 | |
A reaction: Illuminating. This may be the best reason for proposing substantial forms. Once materialism arrives, the so-called 'laws' of nature have to be imposed on the material to do the job - but what the hell is a law supposed to be? |
17093 | Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7 | |
A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon. |
17492 | Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon] |
Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems. | |
From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical' | |
A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach. |
3772 | The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire [Mill] |
Full Idea: The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is the sort of simplistic psychology that modern philosophers tend to avoid. Personally I am more Kantian. I will and desire that the answer to 3+2=? is 5, simply because it is true. Mill must realise we can will ourselves to desire something. |
3769 | With early training, any absurdity or evil may be given the power of conscience [Mill] |
Full Idea: There is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of early sanctions and influence, be made to act on the human mind with all the influence of conscience. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Like this! Think of all the people who have had weird upbringings, and end up feeling guilty about absurd things. Conscience just summarise upbringing and social conventions. |
3767 | Motive shows the worth of the agent, but not of the action [Mill] |
Full Idea: The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I think it is an error to try to separate these too sharply. Morality can't be purely consequential, because it would make earthquakes immoral. Actions indicate the worth of agents. |
3771 | Virtues only have value because they achieve some further end [Mill] |
Full Idea: Utilitarians believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
3768 | Orthodox morality is the only one which feels obligatory [Mill] |
Full Idea: The customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) |
3776 | Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle is a mere form of empty words unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree, is counted for exactly as much as another's (Bentham's "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one"). | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
7202 | The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill] |
Full Idea: One continues to believe in good and evil: in such a way that one feels the victory of good and the annihilation of evil to be a task (- this is English; a typical case is that shallow-headed John Stuart Mill). | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 11[148]e | |
A reaction: The poor old English try very hard to be clear, sensible, practical and realistic, and get branded as 'shallow' for their pains. Nietzsche was a deeper thinker than Mill, but I would prefer Mill to Heidegger any day. |
5935 | Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill] |
Full Idea: Mill's introduction of quality of pleasures into the hedonistic calculus is an unconscious departure from hedonism and a half-hearted admission that there are other qualities than pleasantness in virtue of which states of mind are good. | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
A reaction: Mill argues that experienced people prefer some pleasures to others, but ducks the question of why they might prefer them. It can only be because they have some further desirable quality on top of the equal amount of pleasure. |
3764 | Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill] |
Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3763 | Ultimate goods such as pleasure can never be proved to be good [Mill] |
Full Idea: What can be proved good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. Music is good because it produces pleasure, but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.1) |
3765 | Only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends [Mill] |
Full Idea: Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3766 | Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied [Mill] |
Full Idea: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
3770 | General happiness is only desirable because individuals desire their own happiness [Mill] |
Full Idea: No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
6697 | Moral rules protecting human welfare are more vital than local maxims [Mill] |
Full Idea: Moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another are more vital to human well-being than any maxims about some department of human affairs; ..though in particular cases a social duty is so important, as to overrule any general maxim of justice. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.7 | |
A reaction: The qualification is realistic, but raises the question of whether an 'act' calculation will always overrule any 'rule'. Maybe rule utilitirianism is just act utilitarianism, but ensuring that the calculations are long-term and extensive. (1871 edn) |
3774 | Rights are a matter of justice, not of benevolence [Mill] |
Full Idea: Wherever there is a right, the case is one of justice, and not of the virtue of benevolence. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
3773 | No individual has the right to receive our benevolence [Mill] |
Full Idea: No one has a moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any given individual. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
3775 | A right is a valid claim to society's protection [Mill] |
Full Idea: When we call anything a person's right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |