15 ideas
8013 | In the Reformation, morality became unconditional but irrational, individually autonomous, and secular [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Three concepts about morality emerge from the Reformation period: that moral rules are unconditional demands that lack rational justification; that moral agents are sovereign in choices; and that secular powers have their own norms and justifications. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.10) | |
A reaction: I get the impression that a rather frank admission of the role of self-interest emerged at that time as well. It is only in the late seventeenth century that the possibility of a secular altruism begins to be investigated. But there's Shakespeare... |
8021 | The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: John Lilburne, the Leveller, 'Free-Born John', was the most important of them. They mainly fought for rights of religious conscience, but it quickly escalated into a demand for economic and social rights. It spread to France and the United States. |
8698 | Modal structuralism says mathematics studies possible structures, which may or may not be actualised [Hellman, by Friend] |
Full Idea: The modal structuralist thinks of mathematical structures as possibilities. The application of mathematics is just the realisation that a possible structure is actualised. As structures are possibilities, realist ontological problems are avoided. | |
From: report of Geoffrey Hellman (Mathematics without Numbers [1989]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 4.3 | |
A reaction: Friend criticises this and rejects it, but it is appealing. Mathematics should aim to be applicable to any possible world, and not just the actual one. However, does the actual world 'actualise a mathematical structure'? |
9557 | Statements of pure mathematics are elliptical for a sort of modal conditional [Hellman, by Chihara] |
Full Idea: Hellman represents statements of pure mathematics as elliptical for modal conditionals of a certain sort. | |
From: report of Geoffrey Hellman (Mathematics without Numbers [1989]) by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 5.3 | |
A reaction: It's a pity there is such difficulty in understanding conditionals (see Graham Priest on the subject). I intuit a grain of truth in this, though I take maths to reflect the structure of the actual world (with possibilities being part of that world). |
10263 | Modal structuralism can only judge possibility by 'possible' models [Shapiro on Hellman] |
Full Idea: The usual way to show that a sentence is possible is to show that it has a model, but for Hellman presumably a sentence is possible if it might have a model (or if, possibly, it has a model). It is not clear what this move brings us. | |
From: comment on Geoffrey Hellman (Mathematics without Numbers [1989]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.3 | |
A reaction: I can't assess this, but presumably the possibility of the model must be demonstrated in some way. Aren't all models merely possible, because they are based on axioms, which seem to be no more than possibilities? |
8006 | When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: When Aristotle speaks of the soul we could very often retain his meaning by speaking of personality. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7) | |
A reaction: MacIntyre contrasts this strongly with Plato's dualist view. Famously Aristotle thinks the soul is the 'form' of the body, but this implies that he also includes the higher-level functions of the body. Soul is character? |
6316 | We translate in a way that makes the largest possible number of statements true [Wilson,NL] |
Full Idea: We select as designatum that individual which will make the largest possible number of statements true. | |
From: N.L. Wilson (Substances without Substrata [1959]), quoted by Willard Quine - Word and Object II.§13 n | |
A reaction: From the Quine's reference, it sounds as if Wilson was the originator of the well-known principle of charity, later taken up by Davidson. If so, he should be famous, because it strikes me as a piece of fundamental and important wisdom. |
8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The sophist tradition failed to distinguish the difference between the concept of a man who stands outside and is able to question the conventions of some one given social order, and the concept of a man who stands outside social life as such. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 3) | |
A reaction: A very nice distinction. Compare foreigners in Athens with Diogenes of Sinope, who renounced all cities. This is the germ of MacIntyre's view that morality is essentially dependent on some sort of social order. He is a reviver of virtue theory. |
8012 | The value/fact logical gulf is misleading, because social facts involve values [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: One reason why it is highly misleading to talk of a logical gulf between value and fact....is that we cannot characterize the social life of a tribe in their factual terms and escape their evaluations. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.10) | |
A reaction: Personally I like the objection that facts about functions cannot avoid the value of good functions, but this is very good. It is much better than simply trying to find a specific counterexample, such as facts about promises. Values just are facts. |
8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The name 'eudaimonia' is badly but inevitably translated by 'happiness', badly because it includes both the notion of behaving well and the notion of faring well. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that it does not include the notion of feeling good. Aristotle, however, concludes that pleasure is part of eudaimonia. I take our 'happiness' to be an internal notion, while the Greek word is an external notion. |
8001 | 'Dikaiosune' is justice, but also fairness and personal integrity [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The Greek 'dikaiosune' is inadequately translated as 'justice', but also as any other word; it combines the notion of fairness in externals with that of personal integrity in a way that no English word does. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 1) | |
A reaction: 'Dikaiosune' is said to be the main topic of Plato's 'Republic'. Plato seems to have meant it to cover whatever makes a good character. Justice in behaviour presumably flows from internal justice of character (which is, roughly, inner harmony). |
8023 | My duties depend on my identity, which depends on my social relations [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: I cannot answer the question 'What ought I to do?' until I have answered the question 'Who am I?', and any answer to this question will specify my place in a nexus of social relationships. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.13) | |
A reaction: This is the beginning of the modern critique of deontological ethics coming from revived virtue theory. As it stands, MacIntyre's idea sounds contractual, but I think he intends it in a more organic way. I am a fan. |
8022 | I am naturally free if I am not tied to anyone by a contract [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The essence of the claim to natural rights is that no one has a right against me unless he can cite some contract, my consent to it, and his performance of his obligations under it. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This has become the foundation of western democracy, and the rebellious teenager's charter. Children have not consented to a contract with their parents. Close and loving relationships cease to be contractual. |
8031 | Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: It is notorious that adherents of theories about natural rights or natural laws offer lists of rights or laws which differ in substance from each other. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch.17) | |
A reaction: There seems to have been a consensus early on that self-defence was a natural right, but divergence presumably occurs when you get bolder and more complex. There is a lot of divergence over which is Shakespeare's best play. |
8008 | The Bible is a story about God in which humans are incidental characters [MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: The Bible is a story about God in which human beings appear as incidental characters. | |
From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 9) | |
A reaction: Very illuminating. He creates man, is betrayed by man, drowns him and starts again, sends a redeemer who gets murdered, and finally enlightens a small band who continue the uphill struggle to promote God's way. What next? |