69 ideas
| 6200 | Wisdom is knowing the highest good, and conforming the will to it [Kant] |
| 6207 | What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me [Kant] |
| 6184 | Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher [Kant] |
| 6203 | Metaphysics is just a priori universal principles of physics [Kant] |
| 6181 | Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant] |
| 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] |
| 4271 | There is consciousness whenever behaviour must be explained in terms of mental activity [Scruton] |
| 4272 | Our concept of a person is derived from Roman law [Scruton] |
| 4267 | Conditioning may change behaviour without changing the mind [Scruton] |
| 4269 | An emotion is a motive which is also a feeling [Scruton] |
| 4270 | Do we use reason to distinguish people from animals, or use that difference to define reason? [Scruton] |
| 6183 | Can pure reason determine the will, or are empirical conditions relevant? [Kant] |
| 6191 | The will is the faculty of purposes, which guide desires according to principles [Kant] |
| 6190 | The sole objects of practical reason are the good and the evil [Kant] |
| 4284 | All moral life depends ultimately on piety, which is our recognition of our own dependence [Scruton] |
| 18235 | Only human reason can confer value on our choices [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| 6196 | People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant] |
| 18675 | Kant may rate two things as finally valuable: having a good will, and deserving happiness [Orsi on Kant] |
| 22007 | An autonomous agent has dignity [Würde], which has absolute worth [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| 18234 | The good will is unconditionally good, because it is the only possible source of value [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| 6192 | Good or evil cannot be a thing, but only a maxim of action, making the person good or evil [Kant] |
| 6197 | Morality involves duty and respect for law, not love of the outcome [Kant] |
| 6193 | Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant] |
| 1452 | Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish [Kant] |
| 1454 | Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant] |
| 4273 | Kant's Moral Law is the rules rational beings would accept when trying to live by agreement [Scruton] |
| 6194 | The highest worth for human beings lies in dispositions, not just actions [Kant] |
| 6198 | Virtue is the supreme state of our pursuit of happiness, and so is supreme good [Kant] |
| 1456 | Moral law is holy, and the best we can do is achieve virtue through respect for the law [Kant] |
| 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] |
| 6185 | No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant] |
| 6187 | Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant] |
| 6201 | Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant] |
| 6186 | A holy will is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law [Kant] |
| 6195 | Reason cannot solve the problem of why a law should motivate the will [Kant] |
| 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] |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| 6188 | A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| 6199 | Obligation does not rest on the existence of God, but on the autonomy of reason [Kant] |
| 1453 | We have to postulate something outside nature which makes happiness coincide with morality [Kant] |
| 1455 | Belief in justice requires belief in a place for justice (heaven), a time (eternity), and a cause (God) [Kant, by PG] |
| 6205 | To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant] |
| 6204 | Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant] |
| 6206 | From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant] |
| 6202 | In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant] |