Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Content Preservation', 'What is an Emotion?' and 'On Political Reactions'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification

9382	Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
	Full Idea: I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
	From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
	A reaction: I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions

23981	Rage is inconceivable without bodily responses; so there are no disembodied emotions [James]
	Full Idea: Can one fancy a state of rage and picture no flushing of the face, no dilation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action? …A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.
	From: William James (What is an Emotion? [1884], p.194), quoted by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 3 'Bodily'
	A reaction: Plausible for rage, but less so for irritation or admiration. Goldie thinks James is wrong. James says if intellectual feelings don't become bodily then they don't qualify as emotions. No True Scotsman!

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty

22439	There are only duties if there are rights, so truth is only for those with a right to it [Constant]
	Full Idea: A duty is that on the part of one being which corresponds to the rights of another. Where there are no rights there are no duties. To tell the truth is therefore a duty, but only to the one who has the right to the truth.
	From: Benjamin Constant (On Political Reactions [1797], p.123), quoted by Immanuel Kant - On a supposed right to lie p.28
	A reaction: We can't claim a right to have all questions answered truthfully (because there is a right to privacy), but we might claim a right not to be lied to (as long as we accept a refusal to answer). Kant rejected this idea.

22440	Unconditional truth-telling makes a society impossible [Constant]
	Full Idea: The moral principle 'it is a duty to tell the truth' would, if taken unconditionally and singly, make any society impossible.
	From: Benjamin Constant (On Political Reactions [1797], p.124), quoted by Immanuel Kant - On a supposed right to lie p.28
	A reaction: He gives the well known example of the murderer at the door asking if your friend is inside. Compare everyone becoming perfectly telepathic. Our society would collapse, but a new society would learn to live with it.