Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit' and 'A Thousand Small Sanities'

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30 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism
A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / d. Sources of pleasure
People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / b. Basis of virtue
Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / c. Revolution
Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism
Conservatives often want peace, prosperity and tolerance, but not social fairness [Gopnik]
Conservatives believe obedience and rank are essential to social order [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / a. Liberalism basics
People are fallible, so liberalism tries to distribute power [Gopnik]
Liberals have tried very hard to build a conscience into their institutions [Gopnik]
The opposite of liberalism is dogmatism [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / c. Liberal equality
Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / e. Liberal community
Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik]
Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
Right-wingers attack liberal faith in reason, left-wingers attack its faith in reform [Gopnik]
Cosmopolitan liberals lack national loyalty, and welcome excessive immigration [Gopnik]
Modern left-wingers criticise liberalism's control of culture [Gopnik]
Liberalism's attempt to be neutral and colour-blind erases cultural identities [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 11. Capitalism
Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 14. Nationalism
Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik]
Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 3. Free speech
Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 4. Free market
A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton]