13 ideas
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: The soul is not a mere rasa tabula, a naked and passive thing, with no innate furniture of its own, nor any thing in it, but what was impressed upon it without; for then there could not possibly be any such thing as moral good and evil, just and unjust. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Bk IV Ch 6.4) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to quote Hobbes saying there is no good in objects themselves. I don't see why we must have an innate moral capacity, provided that we have a capacity to make judgements. |
| 6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: The sight cannot judge of sounds, nor the hearing of light and colours; wherefore that which judges of all the senses and their several objects, cannot be itself any sense, but something of a superior nature. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.VI.1) | |
| A reaction: How nice to find a seventeenth century English writer rebelling against empiricism! |
| 19555 | People begin to doubt whether they 'know' when the answer becomes more significant [Conee] |
| Full Idea: Fluent speakers typically become increasingly hesitant about 'knowledge' attributions as the practical significance of the right answer increases. | |
| From: Earl Conee (Contextualism Contested (and reply) [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: The standard examples of this phenomenon are in criminal investigations, and in philosophical discussions of scepticism. Simple observations I take to have maximum unshakable confidence, except in extreme global scepticism contexts. |
| 19557 | Maybe low knowledge standards are loose talk; people will deny that it is 'really and truly' knowledge [Conee] |
| Full Idea: Maybe variable knowledge ascriptions are just loose talk. This is shown when we ask whether weakly supported knowledge is 'really' or 'truly' or 'really and truly' known. Fluent speakers have a strong inclination to doubt or deny that it is. | |
| From: Earl Conee (Contextualism Contested (and reply) [2005], 'Loose') | |
| A reaction: [bit compressed] Conee is suggesting the people are tacitly invariantist about knowledge (they have a fixed standard). But it may be that someone who asks 'do you really and truly know?' is raising the contextual standard. E.g. a barrister. |
| 19556 | Maybe knowledge has fixed standards (high, but attainable), although people apply contextual standards [Conee] |
| Full Idea: It may be that all 'knowledge' attributions have the same truth conditions, but people apply contextually varying standards. The most plausible standard for truth is very high, but not unreachably high. | |
| From: Earl Conee (Contextualism Contested (and reply) [2005], 'Loose') | |
| A reaction: This is the 'invariantist' alternative to contextualism about knowledge. Is it a standard 'for truth'? Either it is or it isn't true, so there isn't a standard. I take the standard to concern the justification. |
| 6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: Sense which lies flat and grovelling in the individuals, and is stupidly fixed in the material form, is not able to rise up or ascend to an abstract universal notion. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.III.III.2) | |
| A reaction: This still strikes me as being one of the biggest problems with reductive physicalism, that a lump of meat in your head can grasp abstractions (whatever they are) and universal concepts. Personally I am a physicalist, but it is weird. |
| 6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: To keep faith and perform covenants is that which natural justice obligeth to absolutely. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of an absolute moral intuition, but one which can clearly be challenged. Covenants (contracts) wouldn't work unless everyone showed intense commitment to keeping them, even beyond the grave, and we all benefit from good contracts. |
| 6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3) | |
| A reaction: Clearly villains can pass wicked laws, so there can't be an obligation to obey all laws (even if they are 'positive', which seems to beg the question). Nevertheless this is a good reason why laws cannot be the grounding of morality. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
| 6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: Omnipotent will cannot make things like or equal one to another, without the natures of likeness and equality. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.I) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the many classic 'paradoxes of omnipotence'. The best strategy is to define omnipotence as 'being able to do everything which it is possible to do'. Anything beyond that is inviting paradoxical disaster. |
| 6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: If the arbitrary will and pleasure of God is the first and only rule of good and justice, it follows that nothing can be so grossly wicked or unjust but if it were commanded by this omnipotent Deity, it must forthwith become holy, just and righteous. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.I.I.5) | |
| A reaction: This is the strong (Platonic) answer to the Euthyphro Question (Idea 336). One answer is that God would not command in such a way - but why not? We may say that God and goodness merge into one, but we are interested in ultimate authority. |
| 6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: If it were not morally good and just in its own nature before any positive command of God, that God should be obeyed by his creatures, the bare will of God himself could not beget any obligation upon anyone. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a self-evident truth, and a big problem for anyone who wants to make God the source of morality. You don't have to accept anyone's authority just because they are powerful or clever (though they do bestow a certain natural authority!). |