Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reply to Fourth Objections', 'On the Pragmatics of Communications' and 'Morality and the emotions'

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7 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism

3643	The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes]
	Full Idea: The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body.
	From: René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225)
	A reaction: A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions

24008	Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223)
	A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions

24009	Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice).
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use

15666	To understand language is to know how to use it to reach shared understandings [Habermas]
	Full Idea: One simply would not know what it is to understand the meaning of a linguistic expression if one did not know how one could make use of it in order to reach understanding with someone about something.
	From: Jürgen Habermas (On the Pragmatics of Communications [1998], p.228), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:34
	A reaction: Not offered as a 'theory of meaning', and certainly plausible. Compare a hammer, though: a proper understanding is that it is used to exert a sharp force, but you can take in its structure and nature before you spot its usage.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism

24007	Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209)
	A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character

24010	An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty

24012	Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226)
	A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example.