Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Good and Evil', 'What's Wrong with Rape?' and 'Letter to Bramhall'

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6 ideas

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism

16620	A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
	From: Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
	A reaction: Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

16622	Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
	From: Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
	A reaction: I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good

22489	'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro
	A reaction: [In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.

25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality

20887	A rape disregards the status of being a person - but so does all assault [Foa]
	Full Idea: In a rape a person is used without proper regard for her personhood - but this is true of every kind of assault.
	From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 1)
	A reaction: This is a good step towards her attempt to pin down what is specifically wrong with rape, which strikes me as an extremely important question, and not merely in order to justify punishments.

20888	Rape of children is dreadful, but no one thinks children should have a right of consent [Foa]
	Full Idea: Rape of children is at least as heinous as rape of adults, though few believe that children have or ought to have the same large domain of consent adults (male and female) ought to have.
	From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 1)
	A reaction: A powerful point. She is not quite spelling out the crux, which is that no one thinks children should have a right to consent to sexual intercourse, which means that consent is irrelevant in such a case of rape. So it can't be the key to adult rape?

20889	If men should lust and women shouldn't, that makes rape the prevalent sexual model [Foa]
	Full Idea: We are taught that sexual desires are desires women ought not to have and men must have. This is the model which makes necessary an eternal battle of the sexes. It explains why rape is the prevalent model of sexuality.
	From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 3)
	A reaction: A striking thought. See 'The Origins of Sex' by F.Dabhoiwala, which claims that women used to be seen as the sexual predators, and the balance shifted in the 18thC. Are women obliged to exhibit lust, in order to defuse rapacious desires?