11 ideas
3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
Full Idea: Those seeking to give their lives meaning usually envision a role in something larger than themselves, …but such a role can't confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant. | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
A reaction: Which correctly implies that this way of finding meaning for one's life is doomed. |
6253 | Reason is our power of finding out true propositions [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: Reason is our power of finding out true propositions. | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a very good definition. I don't see how you can define reason without mentioning truth, and you can't believe in reason if you don't believe in truth. The concept of reason entails the concept of a good reason. |
3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
Full Idea: Justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end. | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
A reaction: This is the correct account, with the vital proviso that where justification comes to an end is usually a social matter. Robinson Crusoe doesn't care whether he 'knows' - he just acts on his beliefs. |
6256 | Can't the moral sense make mistakes, as the other senses do? [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: Can there not be a right and wrong state of our moral sense, as there is in our other senses? | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV) | |
A reaction: Hutcheson replies by saying something like they are both fully reliable in normal conditions. It remains, though, a very good question for the intuitionist to face, as the moral sense is supposed to be direct and reliable, but how do you check? |
6252 | Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: In the following discourse, happiness denotes pleasant sensation of any kind, or continued state of such sensations. | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is a very long way from Greek eudaimonia. Hutcheson seems to imply that I would be happy if I got high on drugs after my family had just burnt to death. Socrates points out that scratching an itch is a very pleasant sensation (Idea 132). |
6257 | You can't form moral rules without an end, which needs feelings and a moral sense [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: What rule of actions can be formed, without relation to some end proposed? Or what end can be proposed, without presupposing instincts, desires, affections, or a moral sense, it will not be easy to explain. | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV) | |
A reaction: We have no reason to think that 'instincts, desires and affections' will give us the remotest guidance on how to behave morally well (though we would expect them to aid our survival). How could a moral sense give a reason, without spotting a rule? |
3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
Full Idea: If life is absurd because it only lasts seventy years, wouldn't it be infinitely absurd if it lasted for eternity? And if we are absurd because we are small, would we be any less absurd if we filled the universe? | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §1) |
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. |
6254 | We are asked to follow God's ends because he is our benefactor, but why must we do that? [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: The reasons assigned for actions are such as 'It is the end proposed by the Deity'. But why do we approve concurring with the divine ends? The reason is given 'He is our benefactor', but then, for what reason do we approve concurrence with a benefactor? | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
A reaction: Characteristic of what MacIntyre calls the 'Enlightenment Project', which is the application of Cartesian scepticism to proving the foundations of morals. Proof beyond proof is continually demanded. If you could meet God, you would obey without question. |
6255 | Why may God not have a superior moral sense very similar to ours? [Hutcheson] |
Full Idea: Why may not the Deity have something of a superior kind, analogous to our moral sense, essential to him? | |
From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
A reaction: This is Plato's notion of the gods, as beings who are profoundly wise, and understand all the great moral truths, but are not the actual originators of those truths. The idea that God creates morality actually serves to undermine morality. |