Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Killing in War' and 'On Eternal and Immutable Morality'

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32 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / c. Tabula rasa
If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 4. Responsibility for Actions
Legal excuses are duress, ignorance, and diminished responsibility [McMahan]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
Liberty Rights are permissions, and Claim Rights are freedom from intervention [McMahan]
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / c. Natural law
Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / a. Just wars
A person or state may be attacked if they are responsible for an unjustified threat [McMahan]
You (e.g. a police officer) are not liable to attack just because you pose a threat [McMahan]
Wars can be unjust, despite a just cause, if they are unnecessary or excessive or of mixed cause [McMahan]
Just war theory says all and only persons posing a threat are liable to attack [McMahan]
The worst unjustified wars have no aim at all [McMahan]
A defensive war is unjust, if it is responding to a just war [McMahan]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / b. Justice in war
Proportionality in fighting can't be judged independently of the justice of each side [McMahan]
Can an army start an unjust war, and then fight justly to defend their own civilians? [McMahan]
Soldiers cannot freely fight in unjust wars, just because they behave well when fighting [McMahan]
The law of war differs from criminal law; attacking just combatants is immoral, but legal [McMahan]
If the unjust combatants are morally excused they are innocent, so how can they be killed? [McMahan]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / c. Combatants
You don't become a legitimate target, just because you violently resist an unjust attack [McMahan]
If all combatants are seen as morally equal, that facilitates starting unjust wars [McMahan]
Volunteer soldiers accept the risk of attack, but they don't agree to it, or to their deaths [McMahan]
If being part of a big collective relieves soldiers of moral responsibility, why not the leaders too? [McMahan]
If soldiers can't refuse to fight in unjust wars, can they choose to fight in just wars? [McMahan]
Equality is both sides have permission, or both sides are justified, or one justified the other permitted [McMahan]
Fighting unjustly under duress does not justify it, or permit it, but it may excuse it [McMahan]
Soldiers cannot know enough facts to evaluate the justice of their war [McMahan]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / d. Non-combatants
Innocence implies not being morally responsible, rather than merely being guiltless [McMahan]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / e. Peace
Unconditional surrender can't be demanded, since evil losers still have legitimate conditions [McMahan]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth]
The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth]