6 ideas
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'). |
4052 | It has become normal to consider passive euthanasia while condemning active euthanasia [Rachels] |
Full Idea: It seems to have become accepted that passive euthanasia (by withholding treatment and allowing a patient to die) may be acceptable, whereas active euthanasia (direct action to kill the patient) is never acceptable. | |
From: James Rachels (No Moral Difference [1975], p.97) | |
A reaction: He goes on to attack the distinction. It is hard to distinguish the two cases, as well as being hard to judge them. |
4053 | If it is desirable that a given patient die, then moral objections to killing them do not apply [Rachels] |
Full Idea: The cause of death (injection or disease) is important from the legal point of view, but not morally. If euthanasia is desirable in a given case then the patient's death is not an evil, so the usual objections to killing do not apply. | |
From: James Rachels (No Moral Difference [1975], p.102) | |
A reaction: Seems reasonable, but a very consequentialist view. Is it good that small children should clean public toilets? |
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... |
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. |