6 ideas
| 22442 | If lies were ever acceptable, with would undermine all duties based on contract [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on a contract, the law of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.30) | |
| A reaction: Should we keep contracts which are made by means of deception and coercion? Where could such absolute authority for contracts come from? Do contracts and treaties tend to lapse after a long period of time? |
| 23279 | It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: I want to emphasise the basic importance of the ordinary idea of a self or person which undergoes changes of character, as opposed to dissolving a changing person into a series of 'selves'. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He mentions Derek Parfit for the rival view. Williams has the Aristotelian view, that a person has an essential nature, which endures through change, and explains that change. But that needs some non-essential character traits. |
| 23280 | Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The Kantians' omission of character is a condition of their ultimate insistence on the demands of impartial morality, just as it is a reason to find inadequate their account of the individual. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II) | |
| A reaction: This is also why the Kantian account of virtue is inadequate, in comparison with the Aristotelian view. |
| 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'). |
| 22441 | The law will protect you if you tell a truth which results in murder [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If you have by a lie prevented someone bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you keep strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.29) | |
| A reaction: Shocking, from a supposedly great thinker. Cowardly hiding behind a perverse law. What would Kant do if the law were changed, to condemn someone who told a truth which would probably lead to a murder? Would he accept a jail sentence? |
| 23278 | For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The basic bearer of value for Utilitarianism is the state of affairs, and hence, when the relevant causal differences have been allowed for, it cannot make any further difference who produces a given state of affairs. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], I) | |
| A reaction: Which is morally better, that I water your bed of flowers, or that it rains? Which is morally better, that I water them from love, or because you threaten me with a whip? |