66 ideas
| 8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: It was in the seventeenth and eighteenth century that morality came generally to be understood as offering a solution to the problems posed by human egoism and that the content of morality came to be largely equated with altruism. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch.16) | |
| A reaction: It was the elevation of altruism that caused Nietzsche's rebellion. The sixteenth century certainly looks striking cynical to modern eyes. The development was an attempt to secularise Jesus. Altruism has a paradox: it needs victims. |
| 8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Twentieth century social life turns out in key part to be the concrete and dramatic re-enactment of eighteenth-century philosophy. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This suggest a two hundred year lag between the philosophy and its impact on the culture. One might note the Victorian insistence on 'duty' (e.g. in George Eliot), alongside Mill's view that the Kantian account of it didn't work (Idea 3768). |
| 8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The failure, in the Enlightenment, of philosophy to provide what religion could no longer furnish was an important cause of philosophy losing its central cultural role and becoming a marginal, narrowly academic subject. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: A strange way of presenting the situation. Philosophy has never aspired to furnish beliefs for the masses. Plato offered them myths. The refutation of religion was difficult and complex. There is no returning from there to a new folk simplicity. |
| 20121 | Grammar only reveals popular metaphysics [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The snares of grammar are the metaphysics of the people. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: If you have this elitist view of metaphysics, then linguistic analysis is just a branch of anthropology. |
| 8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Arguments in philosophy rarely take the form of proofs; and the most successful arguments on topics central to philosophy never do. (The ideal of proof is a relatively barren one in philosophy). | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch.18) | |
| A reaction: He seems proud of this, but he must settle for something which is less than proof, which has to be vindicated to the mathematicians and scientists. I agree, though. Plato is the model, and the best philosophy builds a broad persuasive picture. |
| 24082 | Is the will to truth the desire to avoid deception? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: This unconditional will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to let oneself be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §344) | |
| A reaction: He is hunting for the evolutionary origin of the love of truth, in the needs of a community. In that sense, I would have thought it was just the pressure to get the facts right, because error is dangerous. Nice thought, though. |
| 17884 | Mathematical set theory has many plausible stopping points, such as finitism, and predicativism [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: There are many coherent stopping points in the hierarchy of increasingly strong mathematical systems, starting with strict finitism, and moving up through predicativism to the higher reaches of set theory. | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], Intro) |
| 17893 | 'Reflection principles' say the whole truth about sets can't be captured [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: Roughly speaking, 'reflection principles' assert that anything true in V [the set hierarchy] falls short of characterising V in that it is true within some earlier level. | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 2.1) |
| 17894 | We have no argument to show a statement is absolutely undecidable [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: There is at present no solid argument to the effect that a given statement is absolutely undecidable. | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 5.3) |
| 17890 | There are at least eleven types of large cardinal, of increasing logical strength [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: Some of the standard large cardinals (in order of increasing (logical) strength) are: inaccessible, Mahlo, weakly compact, indescribable, Erdös, measurable, strong, Wodin, supercompact, huge etc. (...and ineffable). | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: [I don't understand how cardinals can have 'logical strength', but I pass it on anyway] |
| 17887 | PA is consistent as far as we can accept, and we expand axioms to overcome limitations [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: To the extent that we are justified in accepting Peano Arithmetic we are justified in accepting its consistency, and so we know how to expand the axiom system so as to overcome the limitation [of Gödel's Second Theorem]. | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Each expansion brings a limitation, but then you can expand again. |
| 17891 | Arithmetical undecidability is always settled at the next stage up [Koellner] |
| Full Idea: The arithmetical instances of undecidability that arise at one stage of the hierarchy are settled at the next. | |
| From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4) |
| 20360 | We Germans value becoming and development more highly than mere being of what 'is' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We Germans are Hegelians insofar as we instinctively attribute a deeper sense and richer value to becoming and development than to what 'is'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §357) | |
| A reaction: I always doubt Nietzsche's claims about 'we Germans' or 'we philosophers'. They say that, intellectually, everyone is either French or German, and my immediate response was to embrace being German. So becoming is where it's at. |
| 24077 | Necessity is thought to require an event, but is only an after-effect of the event [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is supposed to be the cause of something coming to be: in truth it is often only an effect of what has come to be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §205) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like an account of the traditional idea of destiny - which sees inevitability in some major event, which was previously unpredictable. |
| 20126 | The strength of knowledge is not its truth, but its entrenchment in our culture [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The strength of knowledge does not depend on its degree of truth but on its age, on the degree to which it has been incoporated, in its character as a condition of life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the rather modern idea (in Foucault, perhaps) of knowledge as a central component of culture, rather than as an eternal revelation of facts. Note that he is talking about its 'strength', not its veracity or degree of support. |
| 20119 | We became increasingly conscious of our sense impressions in order to communicate them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The emergence of our sense impressions into our consciousness, the ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally, increased proportionally with the need to communicate them to others by means of signs. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: He says in the same section that such ideas (plus his thoughts on consciousness) are the essence of his 'Perspectivism'. In effect, knowledge is not an individual activity, but a team game |
| 8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: There is something extraordinary in the coexistence of empiricism and natural science in the same culture, for they represent radically different and incompatible ways of approaching the world. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: I would say that science is commitment to an ontology, and empiricism is a commitment to epistemology. It is a very nice point, given the usual assumption that science is an empirical activity. See Idea 7621. Strict empiricism distorts science. |
| 20122 | We have no organ for knowledge or truth; we only 'know' what is useful to the human herd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for 'truth'; we 'know' [das Erkennen] (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species; and this 'utility' is ultimately also a mere belief. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: [Section §354 is fascinating!] An odd idea, that we can only have truth is we have an 'organ' for it. It seems plausible that the whole brain is a truth machine. This seems like pure pragmatism, with all its faults. Falsehoods can be useful. |
| 4423 | We assume causes, geometry, motion, bodies etc to live, but they haven't been proved [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We have fixed up a world for ourselves in which we can live, with bodies, lines, planes, causes, motion and form; without these articles of faith nobody would endure life. But that does not mean they have been proved. Life is no argument. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §121) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree. A lot of recent thought suggests that they are Hume's 'natural beliefs', like truth and induction, which simply can't be proved. 'Unprovable' does not mean 'incorrect', however. |
| 6579 | Nietzsche's perspectivism says our worldview depends on our personality [Nietzsche, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche recommends an extreme version of perspectivism in holding that a person's view of the world is a function of that person's life-affirming (Heraclitean) or life-denying (Parmenidean) personality. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin recommends Nehamas on this topic. I am not convinced Nietzsche takes such an individual view as is implied here. See Idea 4420, for example. This view is in tune with Charles Taylor's view that our values shape our understanding of our selves. |
| 24083 | It would be absurd to say we are only permitted our own single perspective [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I think today we are at least far removed from the ridiculous immodesty of decreeing from our corner that one is permitted to have perspectives only from this corner. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §374) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to speculate about the possibility of infinite perspectives, most of them unknowable to us. But Nietzsche was not a simple relativism. The obvious concept needed to accompany a many-perspectives view is consensus. |
| 8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Just as unpredictability does not entail inexplicability, so predictability does not entail explicability. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: The second half is not quite as obvious as the first. The location of lightning strikes is an example of the first. He gives examples of the second, but they all seem to be very complex cases which might be explained, if only we knew enough. |
| 8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Social sciences have discovered no law-like generalisations whatsoever, ...and for the most part they adopt a very tolerant attitude to counter-examples. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is as much to do with a narrow and rigid view of what 'science' is supposed to be, as a failure of the social sciences. Have such sciences explained anything? I suspect that they have explained a lot, often after the facts. |
| 20115 | All of our normal mental life could be conducted without consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We could think, feel, will and remember, and we could also 'act', and yet none of this would have to enter our consciousness. The whole of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in a mirror. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: He credits Leibniz with this line of thought. Nowadays the unconscious aspects of thought are a commonplace, not just from Freud, but from neuroscience. We have no idea how conscious other animals are. Nietzsche attributes consciousness to communication. |
| 20117 | Only the need for communication has led to consciousness developing [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I surmise that consciousness has developed only under the pressure of the need for communication; ...consciousness is really only a net of communication between human beings. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: An interesting speculation, well ahead of its time. Given that thought does not require consciousness, as he claims, it is not quite clear why communication needs it. Presumably two robots can communicate. But Idea 20118 is good. |
| 20118 | Only our conscious thought is verbal, and this shows the origin of consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only conscious thinking takes the form of words, which is to say signs of communication, and this fact uncovers the origin of consciousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Chicken-and-egg question here. Persinally I take consciousnes to be associated with meta-thought, which bestows huge power, and I take language to arise from meta-thought. |
| 20116 | Most of our lives, even the important parts, take place outside of consciousness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: By far the greatest proportion of our life takes place without this mirroring effect [of consciousness]; and this is true even of our thinking, feeling and willing life, however offensive this may sound to older philosophers. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche didn't just hint at the possibility of a (Freudian) sub-conscious - he was whole-heartedly committed to it, and Freud gave him credit for it. I think philosophers are only just beginning to digest this crucial idea. |
| 20120 | Whatever moves into consciousness becomes thereby much more superficial [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whatever becomes conscious becomes by the same token shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities, and generalisation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche would have made a great speech writer for someone. This vision is increasingly how I see people. It is a view reinforced by modern neuroscience, which suggests that we greatly overestimate the conscious part of ourselves. |
| 2932 | 'Know thyself' is impossible and ridiculous [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: "Everybody is farthest away - from himself"; and the maxim "know thyself" addressed to human beings by a god, is almost malicious. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) | |
| A reaction: Expressed with characteristcally Nietzschean brio, but I couldn't agree more, and it is a very important truth. You can only require full self-knowledge if the whole mind is available to be known, and that isn't even remotely the case. |
| 21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question 'Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?'. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], p.201), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 09 | |
| A reaction: MacIntyre is a great champion of the narrative view of the Self. Does this mean that if you had total amnesia, but retained other faculties, you could make no decisions? Can you start a new story whenever you like? |
| 24078 | Thoughts cannot be fully reproduced in words [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Even one's thoughts one cannot reproduce entirely in words. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §244) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this is the germ of Derrida, who seems to see little connection between thought and speech. I take this idea to be entirely correct. Our simplistic view of language reduces the fluidity and many dimensions of thought to a pile of lego bricks. |
| 24081 | Most of our intellectual activity is unconscious [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Only now is the truth dawning on us that the biggest part by far of our intellectual activity takes place unconsciously, and unfelt by us. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §333) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is 'intellectual activity', and just the hidden rumblings of instincts and emotions. I think he is right. Philosophers want to verbalise everything, but I don't think the main insights of philosophical thinking are verbal. |
| 8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: AI machines have four types of unpredictability: they can't predict radical innovation or future maths proofs; they couldn't predict the outcome of their own decisions; their relations with other computers would be a game-theory tangle; and power failure. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This isn't an assertion that they lack 'free will', just a very accurate observation of how the super new machines would face exactly the same problems that we ourselves face. |
| 8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The good life for man is the life spent in seeking for the good life for man. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: This contains a self-evident paradox - that success would be failure. The proposal suits philosophers more than it would suit the folk. Less seeking and more getting on with it seems good, if the activity is a 'flourishing' one. |
| 8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: We possess simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have - very largely, if not entirely - lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: MacIntyre's famous (or notorious) assault on modern ethics. We obviously can't prove him wrong by spouting moral talk. Are we actually more wicked than our ancestors? There is, I think, a relativism problem in the 20th centurty, but that is different. |
| 8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: There are good reasons for distinguishing between expressions of personal preference and evaluative expressions, as the first depend on who utters them to whom, while the second are not dependent for reason-giving force on the context of utterance. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: The sceptics will simply say that in the second type of expression the speaker tries to adopt a tone of impersonal authority, but it is merely an unjustified attempt to elevate personal preferences. "Blue just IS the best colour". |
| 8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Moral judgements are linguistic survivals from the practices of classical theism which have lost the context provided by these practices. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: He is sort of right. Richard Taylor is less dramatic and more plausible on this (Ideas 5065, 5066, 5077). Big claims about 'duty' have become rather hollow, but the rights and wrongs of (e.g.) mistreating children don't seem to need theism. |
| 8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: A central thesis of this book is that the breakdown of the project (of 1630 to 1850) of an independent rational justification of morality provided the historical background against which the predicaments of our own culture can become intelligible. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: Possibly the most important question of our times is whether the Enlightenment failed. MacIntyre's claim is followed by an appeal for a return to Aristotelian/Thomist virtues. Continentals seem to have responded by sliding into relativism. |
| 2933 | Why do you listen to the voice of your conscience? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why do you listen to the voice of your conscience? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. It is perfectly plausible to say that I seem to feel guilty about doing something, but can't see any reason why I should. |
| 8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of the word 'intuition' by a moral philosopher is always a signal that something has gone badly wrong with an argument. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: For the alternative view, see Kripke (Idea 4948). If Kripke is right about logic, I don't see why the same view should have some force in morality. At the bottom of all morality is an intuition that life is worth the struggle. How do you prove that? |
| 8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: It is only when man is thought of as an individual prior to and apart from all roles that 'man' ceases to be a functional concept. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the one key idea at the heart of the revival of virtue ethics in modern times. It pinpoints what may be the single biggest disaster in intellectual history - the isolation of the individual. Yet it led to freedom, rights, and lots of good things. |
| 20141 | Higher human beings see and hear far more than others, and do it more thoughtfully [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes the higher human being from the lower is that the former see and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully - and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §301) | |
| A reaction: Since most people are well equipped with eyes and ears, I take it that this phenomenon, if true, arises from the 'higher' type of person having more interest in what they experience. |
| 24076 | A morality ranks human drives and actions, for the sake of the herd, and subordinating individuals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we encounter a morality we find an estimation and order of rank of human drives and actions. These are always the expression of the needs of a community and herd. The individual is valued only as a function of the herd. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §116) | |
| A reaction: A particularly clear summary of Nietzsche's understanding of modern morality (which he rejects). I tend to see values as what is important, but Nietzsche sees them as a ranking. Could be both. I see the individualism here as existentialist. |
| 8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: In reply to the question of what kinds of approval are expressed by the feelings or attitudes of moral judgments, every version of emotivism either remains silent, or becomes viciously circular by identifying it as moral approval. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an underlying assumption that moral judgements are sharply separated from other judgements, of which I am not convinced. I approve of creating a beautiful mural for an old folks home free of charge, but it must be beautiful. |
| 8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Expression of feeling is not a function of the meaning of sentences, but of their use, as when a teacher shouts at a pupil "7 x 7 = 49!", where the expression of feeling or attitude has nothing whatsoever to do with its meaning. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: This point is what underlies the Frege-Geach problem for emotivism, and is a very telling point. Apart from in metaethics, no one has ever put forward a theory of meaning that says it is just emotion. ...Unless it concerns speakers' intentions? |
| 8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Analytical moral philosophers resist emotivism because moral reasoning does occur, but there can be logical linkages between various moral judgements of a kind that emotivism could not allow for ('therefore' and 'if...then' express no moral feelings). | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'Frege-Geach Problem', nicely expressed, and is the key reason why emotivism seems unacceptable - it is a theory about language, but it just doesn't explain moral discourse sufficiently. |
| 8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: To a large degree people now think, talk and act as if emotivism was true, no matter what their avowed theoretical standpoint may be. Emotivism has become embodied in our culture. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that it is moderately educated people who have swallowed emotivism, in the same way that they have swallowed relativism; it provides an excuse for neglectly the pursuit of beauty, goodness and truth, in favour of pleasure. |
| 22471 | Nietzsche thought it 'childish' to say morality isn't binding because it varies between cultures [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche was not simply a run-of-the-mill moral relativist. He branded as 'childish' the idea that no morality can be binding because moral valuations are necessarily different among different nations. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §345) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.146 | |
| A reaction: Relativists about knowledge and morality are inclined to take quotations from Nietzsche out of context. The existence of this database probably exacerbates such intellectual wickedness. Get a feeling for the whole thinker! |
| 8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Maybe we need to attend to the virtues first in the first place in order to understand the function and authority of rules. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: I think MacIntyre's project is exactly right. Morality is about how humans should live their lives. A bunch of robots could implement a set of moral rules, or make contracts, or maximise one another's benefits. The idea of a human community comes first. |
| 2935 | No two actions are the same [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There neither are nor can be actions which are the same. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) |
| 20198 | Many virtues are harmful traps, but that is why other people praise them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Virtues like industriousness, obedience, chastity, filial piety and justice are usually harmful to those who possess them. When you have a real, whole virtue you are its victim. But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that account. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §021) | |
| A reaction: This is the conspiracy theory of virtue. We want people to do menial or undesirable jobs, so we dress them up as wonderful virtues, and make people feel good for possessing them. There must be some truth in this. |
| 7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
| Full Idea: MacIntyre argues that the concept of virtue is secondary to that of a role-figure, where the latter is always defined by some particular tradition and culture. | |
| From: report of Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981]) by Daniel Statman - Introduction to Virtue Ethics §3 | |
| A reaction: MacIntyre is much more of a relativist than Aristotle. There must be some attempt to deal with the problem of a rotten culture which throws up a corrupt role-model. We need a concept of a good culture and of individual flourishing. |
| 8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This may be presenting character in an excessively moral way. Being lively, for example, is a very distinctive trait of character, but hardly moral. This tells us why philosophers are interested in character, but not why other people are. |
| 8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: If there is nothing to judgements of virtue and vice except the expression of feelings of approval and disapproval, there can be no criteria external to those feelings by appeal to which we may pass judgement upon them. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch.16) | |
| A reaction: The idea that there can be right and wrong feelings may be the key idea in virtue theory. See Idea 5217. A good person would be ashamed to have a bad feeling. Some emotional responses are intrinsically wicked, apart from actions. |
| 4275 | You cannot advocate joyful wisdom while rejecting pity, because the two are complementary [Scruton on Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Pity and good cheer are complementary, ..so there is something contradictory in a philosophy that advocates joyful wisdom, while slandering pity as the enemy of the higher life. | |
| From: comment on Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882]) by Roger Scruton - Animal Rights and Wrongs p.35 | |
| A reaction: A good objection to Nietzsche. He has a rather solipsistic view of joyful exuberance etc., and fails to realise how social such things must be. In that, Nietzsche was caught in the romantic tradition of Wordsworth and co. |
| 2934 | To see one's own judgement as a universal law is selfish [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is selfish to experience one's own judgement as a universal law. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §335) |
| 8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Moore takes it that to call an action right is simply to say that of the available alternative actions it is the one which does or did as a matter of fact produce the most good. Moore is thus a utilitarian. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Far be it from me to disagree with MacIntyre on this, but I would have thought that this made him a consequentialist, rather than a utilitarian. Moore doesn't remotely think that pure pleasure or happiness is the good. He's closer to Rashdall (Idea 6673). |
| 24080 | We should give style to our character - by applying an artistic plan to its strengths and weaknesses [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One thing is essential - 'giving style' to one's character. It is practised by the one who surveys everything that his nature offers in strengths and weaknesses, and subjects it to an artistic plan until each thing appears as art and reason. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §290) | |
| A reaction: Clearly existentialist, in its proposal to change one's own character. I invite the reader to consider applying this to themselves - and I submit that it is an impossible project. Nice thought, though. |
| 20125 | The ethical teacher exists to give purpose to what happens necessarily and without purpose [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: That what happens necessarily, spontaneously and without any purpose, may henceforth appear to be done for some purpose, and strike man as rational and an ultimate commandment, the ethical teacher comes on stage, as teacher of the purpose of existence. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §001) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't look like much of a solution to the problem of nihilism, unless the teacher plants an idea in us which endures and grows. Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence' was supposed to be just such an idea. |
| 9306 | To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §042) | |
| A reaction: Ignoring 'vulgar', this is a nice thought. Do affluent retired people now travel so much because they are terrified of boredom? What would they end up doing if they stayed at home and lived through the boredom to something else? |
| 24079 | The best life is the dangerous life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The secret of harvesting the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from existence is: live dangerously! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §283) | |
| A reaction: I treasured this quotation when I was 17, but failed to live up to it. |
| 2936 | Imagine if before each of your actions you had to accept repeating the action over and over again [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Suppose a demon were to say to you, "This life as you have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more". Then the question in each thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie across your actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §341) | |
| A reaction: If you were stuck in nihilistic indifference, this thought might not be enough to rouse you from your torpor. If all possibilities in life are boring, repetition cannot pep it up, or make it any worse. But I still love this idea! |
| 6842 | Nietzsche says facing up to the eternal return of meaninglessness is the response to nihilism [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche is overwhelmingly concerned with how to respond to nihilism, and he offers the concept of eternal return; the Overman is one who can affirm over and over that one is equal to meaninglessness, without turning to despair or idols. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §342) by Simon Critchley - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.192 | |
| A reaction: I agree with Critchley that this is not much of a recipe for ordinary people's lives, and I don't even find it very congenial for a tough-minded philosopher. We should make the best of the cards we are dealt, however feeble they may appear. |
| 8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the notion of 'rights' only arises out of a community. However, while you might criticise an individual for absurdly asserting all sorts of dubious rights, no one could criticise them if they asserted the right to defend their own life. |
| 8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Omniscience excludes the making of decisions. If God knows everything that will occur, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Aquinas on this] I find it very difficult to see how anyone could read the Bible (see Idea 8008) while keeping this point continually in mind, without seeing the whole book as a piece of blatant anthropomorphism. |
| 2931 | God is dead, and we have killed him [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §125) |