21 ideas
22496 | Wisdom only implies the knowledge achievable in any normal lifetime [Foot] |
Full Idea: Wisdom implies no more knowledge and understanding than anyone of normal capacity can and should acquire in the course of an ordinary life. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: Have philosophers stopped talking about wisdom precisely because you now need three university degrees to be considered even remotely good at phillosophy? Hence wisdom is an inferior attainment, because Foot is right. |
13917 | Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe] |
Full Idea: The central task of metaphysics is to chart the possibilities of existence by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency in which beings of different categories stand to one another. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: I am beginning to think that he is right about the second one, and that dependency and grounding relations are the name of the game. I don't have Lowe's confidence that philosophers can parcel up reality in neat and true ways. |
13919 | Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe] |
Full Idea: The central task of philosophy is the cultivation of insights into natures or essences, and not the 'analysis of concepts', with which it is apt to be confused. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a false dichotomy. I like the idea of trying to understand the true natures of things, but how are we going to do it in our armchairs? |
13918 | Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Holes are things of such a kind that they can coincide without being identical - as are, for example, shadows and spots of light. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
A reaction: His point is that they thereby fail one of the standard tests for being an 'object'. |
13921 | All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Things must have an essence, in the sense of 'what it is to be the individual of that kind', or it would make no sense to say we can talk or think comprehendingly about things at all. If we don't know what it is, how can we think about it? | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
A reaction: Lowe presents this as a sort of Master Argument for essences. I think he is working with the wrong notion of essence. All he means is that things must have identities to be objects of thought. Why equate identity with essence, and waste a good concept? |
13922 | Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe] |
Full Idea: To know something's essence is not to be acquainted with some further thing of a special kind, but simply to understand what exactly that thing is. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
A reaction: I think he is wrong about this, or at least is working with an unhelpful notion of essence. Identity is one thing, and essence is another. I take essences to be certain selected features of things, which explain their nature. |
13920 | Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Any individual thing must be a thing of some general kind - because, at the very least, it must belong to some ontological category. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
A reaction: Where does the law that 'everything must have a category' come from? I'm baffled by remarks of this kind. Where do we get the categories from? From observing the individuals. So which has priority? Not the categories. Is God a kind? |
23694 | All criterions of practical rationality derive from goodness of will [Foot] |
Full Idea: I want to say, baldly, that there is no criterion for practical rationality that is not derived from that of goodness of will. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Where does that put the successful and clever criminal? Presumably they are broadly irrational, but narrowly rational - but that is not very clear distinction. She says Kant's concept of the good will is too pure, and unrelated to human good. |
9284 | Reasons are 'internal' if they give a person a motive to act, but 'external' otherwise [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Someone has 'internal reasons' to act when the person has some motive which will be served or furthered by the action; if this turns out not to be so, the reason is false. Reasons are 'external' when there is no such condition. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Internal and External Reasons [1980], p.101) | |
A reaction: [compressed] An external example given is a family tradition of joining the army, if the person doesn't want to. Williams says (p.111) external reason statements are actually false, and a misapplication of the concept of a 'reason to act'. See Idea 8815. |
23686 | Moral reason is not just neutral, because morality is part of the standard of rationality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her late period she again reverses her thoughts on moral rationalism; …rather than a neutral rationality which fulfils desires, she argues that morality ought to be thought of as part of the standard of rationality itself. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: This comes much closer to the Greek and Aristotelian concept of logos. They saw morality as inseparable from our judgements about how the world is. All 'sensible' thinking will involve what is good for humanity. |
23693 | Practical rationality must weigh both what is morally and what is non-morally required [Foot] |
Full Idea: Different considerations are on a par, in that judgement about what is required by practical rationality must take account of their interaction: of the weight of the ones we call non-moral as well as those we call moral. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Her final settled view of rationalism in morality, it seems. The point is that moral considerations are not paramount, because she sees possible justifications for ignoring moral rules (like 'don't lie') in certain practical situations. |
23687 | Moral virtues arise from human nature, as part of what makes us good human beings [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her later work she offers a view of the relationship of morality to human nature, arguing that the moral virtues are part of what makes us good as human beings. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: In this phase she talks explicitly of the Aristotelian idea that successful function is the grounding of what is good for any living being, including humans. |
22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |
Full Idea: Lack of capacity to reproduce is a defect in a human being. But choice of childlessness and even celibacy is not thereby shown to be defective choice, because human good is not the same as plant or animal good. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: Is failure to reproduce a defect in an animal? If goodness and virtue derive from function, it is hard to see how deliberate childlessness could be a human good, even if it is not a defect. Choosing to terminate a hereditary defect seems good. |
22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
Full Idea: Virtues play a necessary part in the life of human beings as do stings in the life of a bee. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 2) | |
A reaction: This presumably rests on the Aristotelian idea that humans are essentially social (as opposed to solitary humans who choose to be social, perhaps in a contractual way, as Plato implies). |
22491 | Moral evaluations are not separate from facts, but concern particular facts about functioning [Foot] |
Full Idea: A moral evaluation does not stand over against the statement of a matter of fact, but rather has to do with facts about a particular subject matter, as do evaluations of such things as sight and hearing in animals. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: She avoids the word 'function', and only deals with living creatures, but she uses a 'good knife' as an example, and this Aristotelian view clearly applies to any machine which has a function. |
22497 | Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life [Foot] |
Full Idea: Possible objects of deep happiness seem to be things that are basic in human life, such as home, and family, and work, and friendship. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
A reaction: I've not encountered discussion of 'deep' happiness before. I heard of an old man in tears because he had just seen a Purple Emperor butterfly for the first time. She makes it sound very conservative. How about mountaineering achievements? |
22498 | Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends [Foot] |
Full Idea: In my terminology 'happiness' is understood as the enjoyment of good things, meaning the enjoyment in attaining, and in pursuing, right ends. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
A reaction: A modified version of Aristotle's view, which she contrasts with McDowell's identification of happiness with the life of virtue. They all seem to have an optimistic hope that the pleasure in being a bit wicked is false happiness. |
23695 | Good actions can never be justified by the good they brings to their agent [Foot] |
Full Idea: There is no good case for assessing the goodness of human action by reference only to good that each person brings to himself. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: She observes that even non-human animals often act for non-selfish reasons. The significance of this is its rejection of her much earlier view that virtues are justified by the good they bring their possessor. |
22499 | We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life [Foot] |
Full Idea: We know perfectly well that it is not true that the best life would consist in successfully pretending friendship: having friends to serve one but without being a real friend oneself. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
A reaction: For some skallywags the achieving of something for nothing seems to be very much the good life, but not many of them want to exploit people who are seen to be their friends. |
22495 | Someone is a good person because of their rational will, not their body or memory [Foot] |
Full Idea: To speak of a good person is to speak of an individual not in respect of his body, or of faculties such as sight and memory, but as concerns his rational will (his 'will as controllable by reason'). | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: She more or less agrees with Kant that the only truly good moral thing is a good will, though she has plenty of other criticisms of his views. |
22502 | Refraining from murder is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment [Foot] |
Full Idea: If a stranger should come on us when we are sleeping he will not think it all right to kill us. …In human life as it is, this kind of action is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment in the one who does it. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
A reaction: A rare swipe from Foot at existentialism, which she hardly ever mentions. I find it hard to see these existential virtues as in any way moral. It means nothing to other citizens whether one of their number is 'authentic'. |