Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Natural Kinds and Biological Realism', 'works' and 'Animal Rights talk'

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5 ideas

25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights

5064	Rights are moral significance, or liberty, or right not to be restrained, or entitlement [Mawson]
	Full Idea: A 'right' can mean 'x counts morally', or 'x is permitted to do this' (liberty), or 'x can't be stopped from doing this' (negative right), or 'someone should provide this for x'.
	From: Tim Mawson (Animal Rights talk [2003]), quoted by PG - lecture notes
	A reaction: A useful analysis. It is a useful preliminary to considering whether any of these are natural rights. Personally I am sympathetic to that concept. You cannot deny a person's right to self-defence, even when you are sitting on them. Persons have rights.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 2. Religion in Society

20723	Only when working people are poor do they remain obedient to God [Calvin, by Weber]
	Full Idea: Calvin made the much-quoted statement that only when the people, i.e. the mass of labourers and craftsmen, were poor did they remain obedient to God.
	From: report of Jean Calvin (works [1549]) by Max Weber - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 5
	A reaction: This is only one aspect of Christian influence. The alternative is John Wesley's exhortation to work diligently, live modestly, save, invest and get rich. Most people want a comfortable intermediate state, but who proclaims that?

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds

17371	Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt]
	Full Idea: Explanatory significance, hence naturalness, comes in degrees: positing some kinds may be very explanatory, positing others, only a little bit explanatory, positing others still, not explanatory at all.
	From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 4)
	A reaction: He mentions 'cousin' as a natural kind that is not very explanatory of anything. It interests us as humans, but not at all in other animals, it seems. ...Nice thought, though, that two squirrels might be cousins...

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species

17372	The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt]
	Full Idea: The signs are that the higher categories are not natural kinds and so the Linnaean hierarchy must be abandoned. ...This is not abandoning a hierarchy altogether, it is not abandoning a tree of life.
	From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 6)
	A reaction: Devitt's underlying point is that the higher and more general kinds do not have an essence (a specific nature), which is the qualification to be a natural kind. They explain nothing. Essence is the hallmark of natural kinds. Hmmm.

17373	Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt]
	Full Idea: Species pluralism is the view that there are several equally good accounts of what it is to be a species.
	From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 7)
	A reaction: Devitt votes for it, and cites Dupré, among many other. Given the existence of rival accounts, all making good points, it is hard to resist this view.