57 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 2945 | Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2) |
| 2946 | You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7) | |
| A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance. |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 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? |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 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. |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |