61 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. |
| 5182 | Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable. | |
| From: comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real. |
| 6864 | Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.165 | |
| A reaction: A famous and very nice remark. The idea of believing things on instinct sounds more like David Hume than an idealist. Personally I am not so pessimistic about the enterprise. I think metaphysics is capable of changing what we believe. |
| 10999 | Names need a means of reidentifying their referents [Bradley, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Unless a name has associated with it a means of reidentifying its referent, we cannot use it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Brilliant! This point is totally undeniable. It is not enough that someone be 'baptised'. We need to hang onto both the name and what it refers to, and how are we going to do that? |
| 6422 | Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right. |
| 7966 | Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries. |
| 6404 | British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'. |
| 22299 | Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs' | |
| A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are. |
| 21343 | Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal' | |
| A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel. |
| 23101 | Intuitions don't prove things; they just receptivity to interpretations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Appeal to intuitions cannot prove or disprove anything. They merely create receptivity to particular interpretations of particular cases. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice point, but more is needed. A gun to the head can create receptivity. What distinguishes good from bad intuitions? Why are intuitions different from mere whims or hopes? |
| 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. |
| 23086 | Liberals say we are only responsible for fully autonomous actions [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The liberal view is that people can be held responsible only for actions that are in their control: actions that reflect the agents' unforced choices, evaluations, and understanding of their significance - that is, autonomous actions. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Kekes, who is a somewhat right wing anti-liberal, thinks people should be mainly held responsible for the consequences, unless they have a very good excuse. |
| 23100 | Collective responsibility conflicts with responsibility's requirement of authonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The ascription of collective responsibility is inconsistent with …the belief that people should be held responsible for only their own autonomous actions. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04) | |
| A reaction: The autonomy would need to be displaced, from the decision to act to the decision of identify with the organisation. But if you invest in an evil group you are responsible for actions you never even knew occurred (never mind autonomy). |
| 23093 | Moral and causal responsibility are not clearly distinct [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Moral and causal responsibility cannot be distinguished as clearly as the liberal strategy requires. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: I take assessment to be a two-stage operation. It is usually easy to assign causal responsibility. Moral responsibiity is quite different. Our negligence can make us morally responsible for an event we didn’t cause. |
| 23096 | Morality should aim to prevent all evil actions, not just autonomous ones [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If one main task of morality is to prevent evil, then morality must be concerned with all evil-producing actions, not just autonomous ones. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Is placing a railing next to a flight of steps a moral action? Possibly. |
| 23087 | Much human evil is not autonomous, so moral responsibility need not be autonomous [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If much evil is due to nonautonomous actions, then liberals cannot be right in idenitfying the domain of moral responsibility with the domain of autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: One might evade this anti-liberal thought by making responsibility directly proportional to degree of autonomy. Then the only counterexample would be genuine immorality that is entirely non-autonomous, but is there such a thing? |
| 23098 | Effects show the existence of moral responsibility, and mental states show the degree [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Psychological states are relevant to the degree of an agent's moral responsibility, while the effects of their actions are relevant to whether the agents are liable to moral responsibility. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: He has previously offered a problem case for this, where someone's social role makes them fully responsible whatever their mental state. I still think his distinction is helpful. 1) Whose fault is it, then 2) How far are they to blame? Normal practice. |
| 23089 | Evil people may not be autonomously aware, if they misjudge the situation [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Agents who perform evil nonautonomously do not know what they are doing, because they have made a mistake in understanding or evaluating their own conduct. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: So while liberals say that true evil must be autonomous, Kekes says it may result from factual or evaluative error, for which people are also responsible. |
| 23094 | Ought implies can means moral responsibility needs autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Ought implies can translates into the claim that only autonomous agents are morally responsible. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Since Kekes identifies autonomy as the key to liberalism, he sees this also as a basic liberal claim (which he rejects). I ought to ring my mother, but my phone is broken (so I ought not to ring my mother?).. |
| 23095 | Why should moral responsibility depend on autonomy, rather than social role or experience? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Why should moral responsibility be made to depend on autonomy, rather than on intelligence, education, social role, experience, or whatever? | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Social role seems a particularly good one to cite. 'I didn't really understand what I was doing.' 'But it's your job to understand!' |
| 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. |
| 23090 | Liberals assume people are naturally free, equal, rational, and morally good [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The view of human nature at the core of the liberal faith is that human beings are by their nature free, equal, rational, and morally good. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: These four claims are quite distinct, and should be evaluated separately. I think I'm something of a liberal, but I don't really accept any of them. Hm. I just want all people to have these attributes. |
| 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. |
| 23117 | Love should be partial, and discriminate in favour of its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is personal and partial. It is not love if it does not discriminate in favor of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: I agree with that, mainly on the grounds that this is the natural form of human love. Generalised love of mankind seems like a distortion, even if it is well-meaning. |
| 23119 | Sentimental love distorts its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is sentimental if it exaggerates the virtues and minimises the vices of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.5) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. It implies that we should retain a streak of cold evaluative objectivity, even about the people we love most. There is difference between knowing a person's qualities, and the importance we attach to those qualities. Forgive vices! |
| 23088 | Evil is not deviation from the good, any more than good is a deviation from evil [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: There is no more reason to think of evil as deviation from the good than there is to think of the good as deviation from evil. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a political moderate right winger defending the concept of evil as a basic and inescapable component of existence, in contrast to liberals who tend to deny 'pure evil'. |
| 23097 | What matters for morality is the effects of action, not the psychological causes [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: What is crucial to morality are the good and evil effects of human actions, not their psychological causes. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: The context is his attack on the liberal idea that morality only concerns the actions of autonomous agents. Kekes says he is not a full consequentialist. He just urges that consequences be given greater weight. Even Kant must care about that. |
| 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. |
| 23099 | It is said that if an agent is not autonomous then their evil actions don't reflect on their character [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals deny the reflexivity of evil, …to prevent the evil consequences of an agent's morally deplorable actions from redounding to their detriment. Evil actions are allowed to reflect on their agents only if the agents cause them autonomously. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: A central question of morality is essentialising character. That is, when does an eater of carrots become a carrot-eater? When does a performer of wicked deeds become a wicked person? Never, say many liberals. Wrong, says Kekes. |
| 23118 | Awareness of others' suffering doesn't create an obligation to help [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistaken assumption that knowledge of the sufferings of others creates an obligation to help them. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice question is when that knowledge does become an obligation. The obvious criteria are proximity to the suffering, and capacity to relieve it. But then a wealthy person couldn't walk down the street without such obigations. Hm. |
| 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'. |
| 23109 | The veil of ignorance is only needed because people have bad motivations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If the darker aspects of human motivation did not exist, there would be no need for Rawls to place his people behind the veil of ignorance. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: All the critics observe that Rawls's blind choosers are nothing like as simple as the mere specks of rationality he seems to imagine. The usual objection is that they are already liberals, but this objection says they are already benevolent. |
| 23114 | The chief function of the state is to arbitrate between contending visions of the good life [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The chief function of the state is seen to be to maintain what is referred to as the dialogue or conversation among the contending visions of how life should be lived. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: This is Kekes's defence of 'pluralism'. It is not liberal, because liberal freedom, autonomy and equality is only one of the competing visions of the good life. Almost every state suppresses some such visions. |
| 23116 | Citizenship is easier than parenthood [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is much easier to be a good citizen than it is to be a good parent. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice observation. It is shocking how many people are bad citizens, given the limited demands. I think philosophers have some responsibility for beliefs and values which people bring to their citizenship. Parents need communal support. |
| 23103 | Power is meant to be confined to representatives, and subsequent delegation [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Universal adult suffrage and representative government are intended to give everyone equal initial political power, and assure that delegation is the only legitimate means to acquiring greater power. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: The delegation bit is where it all goes wrong. Once you've packed your representative off to the capital, you lose nearly all control over what sort of delegation happens next. It is hard to trust representatives voters have barely met. |
| 23107 | Prosperity is a higher social virtue than justice [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If social institutions were to have a first virtue, …prosperity would be a much stronger candidate that justice. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: Kekes occasionally pays lip service to ecological issues, but this shows he is not serious. Endless economic growth will kill our planet, so it should never be our prime virtue. Also the impplication that you can't be too prosperous is plainly false. |
| 23081 | Liberal basics are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice - for autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The basic liberal values are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice. What makes them basically valuable is that they enable individuals to live autonomously. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Helpful. Kekes identifies respect for autonomy as the single value which unites all liberal doctrines (and he traces it back to Kant). |
| 23085 | The key liberal values are explained by the one core value, which is autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals regard pluralism, freedom, rights, equality and distributive justice as basic …but this particular group of values is explained by the true core of liberalism, the inner citadel for whose protection all the liberal battles are waged: autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Given that children, soldiers, monks and nuns, and people in old folks homes have very limited autonomy, it is reasonable to query whether it really is so important. I like autonomy if I have external power over my life; not so good when in hospital. |
| 23092 | Agents have little control over the capacities needed for liberal autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is important [for liberals] to realise that agents have no control over their possession of the capacities and opportunities on which their autonomy depends. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: It can be replied to Kekes that they also have little control over the capacities upon which his prized 'desert' depends. It may be an axiom of all modern political thought that people have less control than we imagine. |
| 23102 | Liberals are egalitarians, but in varying degrees [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: All liberals are egalitarians, though they may be more or less so. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: In the broadest view, this may be the one thing which distinguishes generalised liberals from the rest. To reject it needs a basis for the rejection, and every basis for its flat rejection is anathema to liberals. |
| 23084 | Are egalitarians too coercive, or not egalitarian enough, or lax over morality? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Egalitarian liberalism is criticised by classical [freedom] liberals for its coercive redistribution, by socialist liberals for not being egalitarian enough, and by conservative liberals for abandoning moral standards in the guise of neutrality. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.4) | |
| A reaction: Income tax is 'coercive' distribution, but it is done with general consent in most liberal democracies. An interesting line between the needs of the state and the needs of its most needy citizens. |
| 23079 | Liberal justice ignores desert, which is the essence of justice [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The liberal conception of justice …excludes the essence of justice: desert. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Certainly our normal concept of justice includes such thoughts as 'serves him right'. The trouble with the Kekes view is his society is continually morally judging people, and most people's grounds for that are fairly irrational. It's why we have courts. |
| 23091 | Why do liberals not see a much wider range of values as basic? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Why are prosperity, order, civility, peace, a healthy environment, security, happiness, and law-abidingness not as important as those thought of by liberals as basic? | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: This presumes that liberals only see a narrow core of values as basic to the structure of the society. Presumably every society should be well disposed towards the nice features listed here. Would their absence wreck the society? |
| 23112 | Liberals ignore contingency, and think people are good and equal, and institutions cause evil [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals comfortably believe that autonomy minimises contingency, that humans are disposed to the good, that wickedness is due to remediable institutions, and that humans are morally equal because of their autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.4) | |
| A reaction: In a nutshell, Kekes thinks liberals are naďve. That institutions cause evil sounds more Marxist than liberal. When individuals become evil, it is reasonable for us to think that this need not have been the case. |
| 23082 | Liberal distribution cares more about recipients than donors [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberal distribution cares more about the rights of the recipients than the rights of the donors. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Even if you are very left wing indeed, this is an important point. A society dominated by a powerful Robin Hood (steal from the rich, for the poor) is quite likely to end in civil war. But should society allow huge individual wealths to accumulate? |
| 23106 | To rectify the undeserved equality, we should give men longer and women shorter lives [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Redistribution ought to aim to equalise the life expectancy of men and women, by making men have longer and women shorter lives. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice satirical counterexample to the Rawlsian claim that 'undeserved inequalities should somehow be compensated for' [Rawls 1971: 100]. See also Kurt Vonnegut's story 'Harrison Bergeron'. |
| 23121 | It is just a fact that some people are morally better than others [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is an obviolus fact that some people are morally better than others and that some are morally worse. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This could be conceded, without then asserting that the moral ones are superior, or more deserving. That is a social strategy, rather than a fact. We can challenge the criteria for 'morally better', but we can't deny a rankng once it is agreed. |
| 23105 | It is not deplorable that billionaires have more than millionaires [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is certainly not intuitively deplorable that billionaires have more money than millionaires. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: Nice point. His claim is that sufficiency is the important feature, and equality is largely irrelevant. The reality, though, is that the billionaires, unlike the millionaires, could solve the insufficiency problem. |
| 23120 | The problem is basic insufficiency of resources, not their inequality [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If everyone has sufficient resources, it is not objectionable that some have more than others. What is objectionable is that some do not have enough. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Reasonable, but there seems to be sharp disagreement between the haves and the have-nots over what counts as 'enough'. In an affluent country, does enough include a car, restaurant dining, and foreign holidays? Or just food and shelter? |
| 23108 | Justice combines consistency and desert; treat likes alike, judging likeness by desert [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Justice is a combination of consistency and desert. Like cases should be treated alike, and likenesses should be evaluated according to desert. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He needs to add that at least the desert should be relevant to the events being assessed. Should people not get a fair trial if they are branded as generally 'undeserving'? Hence the case must be judged before the desert is identified. |
| 23083 | Liberal welfare focuses on need rather than desert [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: In welfare legislation, liberals concentrate on what people need rather than on what they deserve. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01,2) | |
| A reaction: He makes assessing what people 'deserve' sound easy. Do drowning people deserve to be rescued? Do billionaires deserve their wealth (which is not the same as 'did they acquire it legally')? What do rude people deserve? |
| 23113 | Sexual morality doesn't require monogamy, but it needs a group of sensible regulations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: A moral tradition need not be committed to monogamy, but it must regulate sexual conduct to prevent inbreeding, protect the sexually immature, prohibit some forms of coercion, and assign responsibility for raising children. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: Wise words, I would say. The sexual liberation which arose with the contraceptive pill rather swamped thoughts of this type. These are just sensible responses to the facts of life. |
| 6406 | Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't. |