62 ideas
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
| A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
| A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
| 21554 | Sets always exceed terms, so all the sets must exceed all the sets [Lackey] |
| Full Idea: Cantor proved that the number of sets in a collection of terms is larger than the number of terms. Hence Cantor's Paradox says the number of sets in the collection of all sets must be larger than the number of sets in the collection of all sets. | |
| From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
| A reaction: The sets must count as terms in the next iteration, but that is a normal application of the Power Set axiom. |
| 21553 | It seems that the ordinal number of all the ordinals must be bigger than itself [Lackey] |
| Full Idea: The ordinal series is well-ordered and thus has an ordinal number, and a series of ordinals to a given ordinal exceeds that ordinal by 1. So the series of all ordinals has an ordinal number that exceeds its own ordinal number by 1. | |
| From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
| A reaction: Formulated by Burali-Forti in 1897. |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
| A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
| A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
| A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
| A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
| 4363 | The word 'person' is useless in ethics, because what counts as a good or bad self-conscious being? [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: An excellent reason for keeping the word 'person' out of ethics is that it is usually so thinly defined that it cannot generate any sense of 'good person'. If a person is just a self-conscious being, what would count as a good or bad one? | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.9 n20) | |
| A reaction: A nice point. Locke's concept of a person (rational self-conscious being) lacks depth and individuality, and Hitler fulfils the criteria as well as any saint. But if Hitler wasn't a 'bad person', what was he bad at being? |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
| A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
| 4355 | There may be inverse akrasia, where the agent's action is better than their judgement recommends [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: There seem to be cases of 'inverse akrasia', in which the course of action actually followed is superior to the course of action recommended by the agent's best judgement. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This must occur, as when an assassin lets his victim off, and then regrets the deed. It strengthens the case against Socrates, and in favour of their being two parts of the soul which compete to motivate our actions. |
| 4325 | Must all actions be caused in part by a desire, or can a belief on its own be sufficient? [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: In contemporary philosophy of action, there is a fervid debate about whether any intentional action must be prompted in part by desire, or whether it is possible to be moved to action by a belief alone. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I want a cool belief to be sufficient to produce an action, because it will permit at least a Kantian dimension to ethics, and make judgement central, and marginalise emotivism, which is the spawn of Satan. |
| 4351 | It is a fantasy that only through the study of philosophy can one become virtuous [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: It is a fantasy that only through the study of philosophy can one become virtuous. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I personally believe that philosophy is the best route yet devised to the achievement of virtue, but it is clearly not essential. All the philosophers I meet are remarkably virtuous, but that may be a chicken/egg thing. |
| 4340 | You are not a dishonest person if a tragic dilemma forces you to do something dishonest [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Doing what is, say, dishonest solely in the context of a tragic dilemma does not entail being dishonest, possessing that vice. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.3 n8) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, although it mustn't be thought that the dishonesty is thereby excused. Virtuous people find being dishonest very painful. |
| 4329 | After a moral dilemma is resolved there is still a 'remainder', requiring (say) regret [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: When one moral requirement has overriden another in a dilemma, there is still a 'remainder', so that regret, or the recognition of some new requirement, are still appropriate. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a powerful point on behalf of virtue ethics. There is a correct way to feel about the application of rules and calculations. Judges sleep well at night, but virtuous people may not. |
| 4330 | Deontologists resolve moral dilemmas by saying the rule conflict is merely apparent [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: With respect to resolvable dilemmas, the deontologist's strategy is to argue that the 'conflict' between the two rules which has generated the dilemma is merely apparent. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This assumes that the rules can't conflict (because they come for God, or pure reason), but we might say that there are correct rules which do conflict. Morality isn't physics, or tennis. |
| 4341 | Involuntary actions performed in tragic dilemmas are bad because they mar a good life [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: The actions a virtuous agent is forced to in tragic dilemmas fail to be good actions because the doing of them, no matter how unwillingly or involuntarily, mars or ruins a good life. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Of course, only virtuous people have their lives ruined by such things. For the cold or the wicked it is just water off a duck's back. |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
| A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
| A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
| A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
| 4358 | Virtue may be neither sufficient nor necessary for eudaimonia [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Some critics say virtue is not necessary for eudaimonia (since the wicked sometimes flourish), and others say it is not sufficient (because virtuous behaviour sometimes ruins a life). | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: Both criticisms seem wrong (the wicked don't 'flourish', and complete virtue never ruins lives, except in tragic dilemmas). But it is hard to prove them wrong. |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
| A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
| 4337 | Teenagers are often quite wise about ideals, but rather stupid about consequences [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Adolescents tend to be much more gormless about consequences than they are about ideals. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2 n12) | |
| A reaction: Very accurate, I'm afraid. But this cuts both ways. They seem to need education not in virtue, but simply in consequences. |
| 4324 | Animals and plants can 'flourish', but only rational beings can have eudaimonia [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: The trouble with 'flourishing' as a translation of 'eudaimonia' is that animals and even plants can flourish, but eudaimonia is possible only for rational beings. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Intro) | |
| A reaction: 'Flourishing' still seems better than 'happy', which is centrally used now to refer to a state of mind, not a situation. 'Well being' seems good, and plants are usually permitted that. |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
| A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
| A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
| 4359 | When it comes to bringing up children, most of us think that the virtues are the best bet [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: If you think about bringing up children to prepare them for life, rather than converting the wicked or convincing the moral sceptic, isn't virtue the most reliable bet? | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: A very convincing idea. They haven't the imagination to grasp consequences properly, or sufficient abstract thought to grasp principles, or the political cunning to negotiate contracts, but they can grasp ideals of what a good person is like. |
| 4336 | Any strict ranking of virtues or rules gets abandoned when faced with particular cases [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Any codification ranking the virtues, like any codification ranking the rules, is bound to come up against cases where we will want to change the rankings. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, and yet it feels like a slippery slope. Am I supposed to be virtuous and wise, but have no principles? Infinite flexibility can lead straight to wickedness. Even the wise need something to hang on to. |
| 4334 | Virtue ethics is open to the objection that it fails to show priority among the virtues [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: One criticism of virtue ethics is that it lamentably fails to come up with a priority ranking of the virtues. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: However, one might refer to man's essential function, or characteristic function, and one might derive the virtues of a good citizen from the nature of a good society. |
| 4361 | Good animals can survive, breed, feel characteristic pleasure and pain, and contribute to the group [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: A good social animal is well fitted for 1) individual survival, 2) continuance of its species, 3) characteristic freedom from pain and enjoyment, and 4) good characteristic functioning of its social group. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: This feels right, but brings out the characteristic conservativism of virtue theory. A squirrel which can recite Shakespeare turns out to be immoral. |
| 4349 | Virtuous people may not be fully clear about their reasons for action [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Virtue must surely be compatible with a fair amount of inarticulacy about one's reasons for action. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Virtuous people may be unclear, but we are entitled to hope for clarification from moral philosophers. The least we can hope for is some distinction between virtue and vice. |
| 4352 | Performing an act simply because it is virtuous is sufficient to be 'morally motivated' or 'dutiful' [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Acting virtuously, in the way the virtuous agent acts, namely from virtue, is sufficient for being 'morally motivated' or acting 'from a sense of duty'. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Fine, but it invites the question of WHY virtue is motivating, just as one can ask this of maximum happiness, or duty, or even satisfaction of selfish desires. |
| 4353 | If moral motivation is an all-or-nothing sense of duty, how can children act morally? [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: If you are inclined to think that 'moral motivation', acting because you think it is right, must be an all-or-nothing matter, its presence determined by the agent's mind at the moment of acting, do, please, remember children. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I agree about the vital importance of remembering children when discussing morality. However, Kantians might legitimately claim that when a child is simply trained to behave well, it has not yet reached the age of true morality. |
| 4346 | The emotions of sympathy, compassion and love are no guarantee of right action or acting well [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: The emotions of sympathy, compassion and love are no guarantee of right action or acting well. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a critique of Hume, and of utlitarianism. It pushes us either to the concept of duty, or the concept of virtue (independent of right feeling). |
| 4339 | According to virtue ethics, two agents may respond differently, and yet both be right [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: According to virtue ethics, in a given situation two different agents may do what is right, what gets a tick of approval, despite the fact that each fails to do what the other did. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: You could certainly have great respect for two entirely different decisions about a medical dilemma, if they both showed integrity and good will, even if one had worse consequences than the other. |
| 4354 | Maybe in a deeply poisoned character none of their milder character traits could ever be a virtue [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: I am prepare to stick my neck out and say that extreme Nazis or racists (say) have poisoned characters to such an extent that none of their character traits could ever count as a virtue. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Hard to justify, but it is hard to respect a mass murderer because they seem to love their dog or the beauty of music or flowers. They can't possibly appreciate the Platonic Form of love or beauty? |
| 4364 | Being unusually virtuous in some areas may entail being less virtuous in others [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: It may well be that being particularly well endowed with respect to some virtues inevitably involves being not very well endowed in others. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: Maybe, but this sound a bit like an excuse. Newton wasn't very nice, but Einstein was. I can't believe in a finite reservoir of virtue. |
| 4356 | We are puzzled by a person who can show an exceptional virtue and also behave very badly [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: That we have some intuitive belief in the unity of the virtues is shown by our reaction to stories of a person who has shown an exceptional virtue, but also done something morally repellent. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: A nice observation, but not enough to establish the unity of virtue. People tend to love all virtue, but it is not obviously impossible to love selected virtues and despise others (e.g. love courage, and despise charity). |
| 4327 | Deontologists do consider consequences, because they reveal when a rule might apply [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Though it is sometimes said that deontologists 'take no account of consequences', this is manifestly false, for many actions we deliberate about only fall under rules or principles when we bring in their predicted consequences. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: An important defence of deontology, which otherwise is vulnerable to the 'well-meaning fool' problem. It is no good having a good will, but refusing to think about consequences. |
| 4335 | 'Codifiable' morality give rules for decisions which don't require wisdom [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: If morality is strongly 'codifiable', it should consist of rules which provide a decision procedure, and it should be equally applicable by the virtuous and the non-virtuous, without recourse to wisdom. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A key idea. Religions want obedience, and Kant wants morality to be impersonal, and most people want morality which simple uneducated people can follow. And yet how can wisdom ever be irrelevant? |
| 4328 | Preference utilitarianism aims to be completely value-free, or empirical [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: There are some forms of utilitarianism which aim to be entirely 'value-free' or empirical, such as those which define happiness in terms of the satisfaction of actual desires or preferences, regardless of their content. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This point makes it clear that preference utilitarianism is a doomed enterprise. For a start I can prefer not to be a utilitarian. You can only maximise something if you value if. Are preferences valuable? |
| 4343 | We are torn between utilitarian and deontological views of lying, depending on the examples [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism says there is nothing intrinsically wrong with lying, but examples of bare-faced lying to increase happiness drive us to deontology; but then examples where telling the truth has appalling consequences drive us back to utilitarianism again. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of why virtue theory suddenly seemed appealing. Deontology can cope, though, by seeing other duties when the consequences are dreadful. |
| 4338 | Deontologists usually accuse utilitarians of oversimplifying hard cases [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Deontologists characteristically maintain that utilitarians have made out a particular hard case to be too simple. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Utilitarianism certainly seems to ignore the anguish of hard dilemmas, but that is supposed to be its appeal. If you think for too long, every dilemma begins to seem hopeless. |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
| 4365 | We are distinct from other animals in behaving rationally - pursuing something as good, for reasons [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: Our characteristic way of going on, which distinguishes us from all the other species of animals, is a rational way, which is any way we can rightly see as good, as something we have reason to do. | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch10) | |
| A reaction: Some people more than others, and none of us all the time. Romantics see rationality as a restraint on the authentic emotional and animal life. 'Be a good animal'. However, I agree. |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |
| 4350 | If people are virtuous in obedience to God, would they become wicked if they lost their faith? [Hursthouse] |
| Full Idea: If people perform virtuous actions simply because they are commanded by God, would they cease to perform such actions if they lost their faith in God? | |
| From: Rosalind Hursthouse (On Virtue Ethics [1999], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: To be consistent, the answer might be 'yes', but that invites the response that only intrinsically evil people need to be Christians. The rest of us can be good without it. |