7 ideas
17962 | The truth-maker principle is that every truth has a sufficient truth-maker [Forrest] |
Full Idea: Item x is said to be a sufficient truth-maker for truth-bearer p just in case necessarily if x exists then p is true. ...Every truth has a sufficient truth-maker. Hence, I take it, the sum of all sufficient truth-makers is a universal truth-maker. | |
From: Peter Forrest (General Facts,Phys Necessity, and Metaph of Time [2006], 1) | |
A reaction: Note that it is not 'necessary', because something else might make p true instead. |
14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
Full Idea: On Salmon's statistical relevance view, an explanation is a table of statistical information. | |
From: report of Wesley Salmon (Statistical Explanation [1970]) by Michael Strevens - No Understanding without Explanation 1 | |
A reaction: [He cites W.Salmon 1970] When put like that the view sounds incredibly implausible, but maybe a reading of Salmon would improve the case for it. |
24008 | Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223) | |
A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots. |
24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice). | |
From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic. |
24007 | Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209) | |
A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone? |
24010 | An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them. |
24012 | Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226) | |
A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example. |