57 ideas
| 5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
| 5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
| 4266 | Having beliefs involves recognition, expectation and surprise [Scruton] |
| 4265 | If an animal has beliefs, that implies not only that it can make mistakes, but that it can learn from them [Scruton] |
| 4264 | Perception (which involves an assessment) is a higher state than sensation [Scruton] |
| 5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| 4271 | There is consciousness whenever behaviour must be explained in terms of mental activity [Scruton] |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| 4272 | Our concept of a person is derived from Roman law [Scruton] |
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| 5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
| 4267 | Conditioning may change behaviour without changing the mind [Scruton] |
| 5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| 5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
| 4269 | An emotion is a motive which is also a feeling [Scruton] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 4270 | Do we use reason to distinguish people from animals, or use that difference to define reason? [Scruton] |
| 5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
| 4284 | All moral life depends ultimately on piety, which is our recognition of our own dependence [Scruton] |
| 5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| 5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
| 4273 | Kant's Moral Law is the rules rational beings would accept when trying to live by agreement [Scruton] |
| 4274 | The modern virtues are courage, prudence, wisdom, temperance, justice, charity and loyalty [Scruton] |
| 4286 | Only just people will drop their own self-interests when faced with an impartial verdict [Scruton] |
| 4283 | Sympathy can undermine the moral order just as much as crime does [Scruton] |
| 4290 | That which can only be done by a callous person, ought not to be done [Scruton] |
| 4285 | As soon as we drop self-interest and judge impartially, we find ourselves agreeing about conflicts [Scruton] |
| 4287 | Utilitarianism merely guides us (by means of sympathy) when the moral law is silent [Scruton] |
| 4282 | Morality is not a sort of calculation, it is what sets the limits to when calculation is appropriate [Scruton] |
| 4281 | Utilitarianism says we can't blame Stalin yet, but such a theory is a sick joke [Scruton] |
| 4280 | Utilitarianism is wrong precisely because it can't distinguish animals from people [Scruton] |
| 4296 | Brutal animal sports are banned because they harm the personality of the watcher [Scruton] |
| 4288 | Many breeds of animals have needs which our own ancestors planted in them [Scruton] |
| 4293 | Introducing a natural means of controlling animal population may not be very compassionate [Scruton] |
| 4295 | We favour our own animals over foreign ones because we see them as fellow citizens [Scruton] |
| 4268 | Animals command our sympathy and moral concern initially because of their intentionality [Scruton] |
| 4291 | Letting your dog kill wild rats, and keeping rats for your dog to kill, are very different [Scruton] |
| 4263 | Many of the stranger forms of life (e.g. worms) interest us only as a species, not as individuals [Scruton] |
| 4276 | An animal has individuality if it is nameable, and advanced animals can respond to their name [Scruton] |
| 4277 | I may avoid stepping on a spider or flower, but fellow-feeling makes me protect a rabbit [Scruton] |
| 4278 | Lucky animals are eaten by large predators, the less lucky starve, and worst is death by small predators [Scruton] |
| 4279 | We can easily remove the risk of suffering from an animal's life, but we shouldn't do it [Scruton] |
| 4289 | Sheep and cattle live comfortable lives, and die an enviably easy death [Scruton] |
| 4292 | Concern for one animal may harm the species, if the individual is part of a bigger problem [Scruton] |
| 4294 | Animals are outside the community of rights, but we still have duties towards them [Scruton] |
| 5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |