Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Inventing Logical Necessity' and 'Freedom and Reason'

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6 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity

12189	Logical necessity involves a decision about usage, and is non-realist and non-cognitive [Wright,C, by McFetridge]
	Full Idea: Wright espouses a non-realist, indeed non-cognitive account of logical necessity. Crucial to this is the idea that acceptance of a statement as necessary always involves an element of decision (to use it in a necessary way).
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §3
	A reaction: This has little appeal to me, as I take (unfashionably) the view that that logical necessity is rooted in the behaviour of the actual physical world, with which you can't argue. We test simple logic by making up examples.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism

7320	Holism cannot give a coherent account of scientific methodology [Wright,C, by Miller,A]
	Full Idea: Crispin Wright has argued that Quine's holism is implausible because it is actually incoherent: he claims that Quine's holism cannot provide us with a coherent account of scientific methodology.
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.5
	A reaction: This sounds promising, given my intuitive aversion to linguistic holism, and almost everything to do with Quine. Scientific methodology is not isolated, but spreads into our ordinary (experimental) interactions with the world (e.g. Idea 2461).

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism

22331	Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
	Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9
	A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement?

22484	Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191
	A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

7903	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').

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative

6449	The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel]
	Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality
	A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised.