Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Methods of Ethics (7th edn)', 'The Absurd' and 'works'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


9 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
For intuitionists excluded middle is an outdated historical convention [Brouwer]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / h. Reals from Cauchy
Brouwer saw reals as potential, not actual, and produced by a rule, or a choice [Brouwer, by Shapiro]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification
Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free [Sidgwick]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 4. Social Utilitarianism
Sidwick argues for utilitarian institutions, rather than actions [Sidgwick, by Tuckness/Wolf]