Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Roots of Reference', 'Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion' and 'Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

14296	Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine]
	Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition.
	From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3
	A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers?

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / a. Explanation

14470	Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event [Kim]
	Full Idea: The general principle of explanatory exclusion states that two or more complete and independent explanations of the same event or phenomenon cannot coexist.
	From: Jaegwon Kim (Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion [1989], 3)
	A reaction: This is a rather optimistic view of explanations, with a strong element of reality involved. I would have thought there were complete explanations at different 'levels', which were complementary to one another.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue

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.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia

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.