Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Particulars in Particular Clothing', 'Liberalism and the Limits of Justice' and 'Nietzsche's Immoralism'

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5 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes

18431	Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards]
	Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes.
	From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5
	A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials?

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility

22474	Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot]
	Full Idea: Moral, as opposed to aesthetic, evaluation does require some distinction between actions for which we are responsible and those for which we are not responsible.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.154)
	A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this, but difficult to give a precise account of responsibility, probably because it is not an all-or-nothing matter. If we accept responsibility for our controlled actions, why not for our considered aesthetic judgements?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / c. Justice

22472	The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot]
	Full Idea: I wonder whether the practice of justice may not absolutely require a certain recognition of equality between human beings, not a pretence of the equality of talents, but something deeper.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.152)
	A reaction: {My 'something deeper' is expressed by Foot in a quotation from Gertrude Stein]. This may well be the most fundamental division which runs across a society - between those who accept and those reject human equality.

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 4. Original Position / a. Original position

20594	Choosers in the 'original position' have been stripped of most human characteristics [Sandel, by Tuckness/Wolf]
	Full Idea: Sandel argues that people in the 'original position' have been stripped of everything that makes them recognisably human: their conceptions of the good, their nationality, family membership, religion, friendships and past histories.
	From: report of Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [1982]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian'
	A reaction: This draws attention to what a pure Enlightenment rational project Rawls is pursuing, in the spirit if Kant's ethics. Choosers in the original position become identical, and thus choose a homogeneous society.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / b. Liberal individualism

21120	The self is 'unencumbered' if it can abandon its roles and commitments without losing identity [Sandel, by Shorten]
	Full Idea: Sandel says liberals are committed to the 'unencumbered self', ..when it has no roles, commitments or projects that are 'so essential that turning away from them would call into question the person I am'.
	From: report of Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [1982], p.86) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 02
	A reaction: This is a very penetrating criticism of liberalism. The liberal self that makes social and legal contracts and exercises basic political rights is not far from being a robot. It has the minimum needed to join a society. Belonging is quite different.