Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' and 'Letters to Pierre Bayle'

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3 ideas

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
If we know what is good or rational, our knowledge is extended, and our free will restricted [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The more perfect one is, the more one is determined to the good, and so is more free at the same time. ...Our power and knowledge are more extended, and our will much the more limited within the bounds of perfect reason.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Pierre Bayle [1702], 1702)
     A reaction: I like this idea, which seems to me to derive from Aquinas. When I choose to eat and drink each day, or agree that 7+5 is 12, I don't complain about my lack of freedom in the choices. Goodness and reason are constraints I welcome.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
Maybe final value rests on the extrinsic property of being valued by a rational agent [Korsgaard, by Orsi]
     Full Idea: Korsgaard argues for the ultimate dependence of final value on the extrinsic property of being valued by a rational agent.
     From: report of Christine M. Korsgaard (Creating the Kingdom of Ends [1992]) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 2.3 n4
     A reaction: This hyper-Kantian view doesn't strike me as very plausible. Not philosophical theory which entirely cuts animals out of the story has much appeal for me.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').