Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Defense of Abortion', 'The Problem of the Soul' and 'Actualism and Thisness'

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


32 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
Adams says actual things have haecceities, but not things that only might exist [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self
The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan]
We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan]
Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan]
We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / f. Emotion and reason
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity
Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan]
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 3. Abortion
The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but not to be killed unjustly [Thomson]
A newly fertilized ovum is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree [Thomson]
Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights [Thomson, by Foot]
It can't be murder for a mother to perform an abortion on herself to save her own life [Thomson]
The foetus is safe in the womb, so abortion initiates its death, with the mother as the agent. [Foot on Thomson]
Is someone's right to life diminished if they were conceived by a rape? [Thomson]
The right to life does not bestow the right to use someone else's body to support that life [Thomson]
No one is morally required to make huge sacrifices to keep someone else alive for nine months [Thomson]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan]