5 ideas
5121 | Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman] |
Full Idea: Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2) | |
A reaction: This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing. |
5120 | What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman] |
Full Idea: If we base our ethics on human flourishing, one implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing' seems inevitably relative to one or other set of values. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.1) | |
A reaction: This remark seems to make the relativist assumption that all value systems are equal. For Aristotle, flourishing is no more relative than health is. No one can assert that illness has an intrinsically high value in human life. |
20948 | Human cultures are organisms which grow, and then fade and die [Spengler, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Spengler relies upon the idea of human cultures as organisms which grow and then inevitably die, having lost their vitality. | |
From: report of Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West [1918]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 2 'Herder' | |
A reaction: He should have thought more about technology. If the 'West' collapses and is replaced by China (say), the new Chinese culture will be barely distinguishable from the West, because they will pursue similar technologies. |
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. |