52 ideas
| 10482 | The logic of ZF is classical first-order predicate logic with identity [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: The logic of ZF Set Theory is classical first-order predicate logic with identity. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.121) | |
| A reaction: This logic seems to be unable to deal with very large cardinals, precisely those that are implied by set theory, so there is some sort of major problem hovering here. Boolos is fairly neutral. |
| 10492 | A few axioms of set theory 'force themselves on us', but most of them don't [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the axioms of extensionality and the pair set axiom 'force themselves on us' (Gödel's phrase), but I am not convinced about the axioms of infinity, union, power or replacement. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.130) | |
| A reaction: Boolos is perfectly happy with basic set theory, but rather dubious when very large cardinals come into the picture. |
| 18192 | Do the Replacement Axioms exceed the iterative conception of sets? [Boolos, by Maddy] |
| Full Idea: For Boolos, the Replacement Axioms go beyond the iterative conception. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (The iterative conception of Set [1971]) by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics I.3 |
| 7785 | The use of plurals doesn't commit us to sets; there do not exist individuals and collections [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: We should abandon the idea that the use of plural forms commits us to the existence of sets/classes… Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. There are not two sorts of things in the world, individuals and collections. | |
| From: George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984]), quoted by Henry Laycock - Object | |
| A reaction: The problem of quantifying over sets is notoriously difficult. Try http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/index.html. |
| 10485 | Naïve sets are inconsistent: there is no set for things that do not belong to themselves [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: The naïve view of set theory (that any zero or more things form a set) is natural, but inconsistent: the things that do not belong to themselves are some things that do not form a set. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.127) | |
| A reaction: As clear a summary of Russell's Paradox as you could ever hope for. |
| 10484 | The iterative conception says sets are formed at stages; some are 'earlier', and must be formed first [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: According to the iterative conception, every set is formed at some stage. There is a relation among stages, 'earlier than', which is transitive. A set is formed at a stage if and only if its members are all formed before that stage. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.126) | |
| A reaction: He gives examples of the early stages, and says the conception is supposed to 'justify' Zermelo set theory. It is also supposed to make the axioms 'natural', rather than just being selected for convenience. And it is consistent. |
| 13547 | Limitation of Size is weak (Fs only collect is something the same size does) or strong (fewer Fs than objects) [Boolos, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Weak Limitation of Size: If there are no more Fs than Gs and the Gs form a collection, then Fs form a collection. Strong Limitation of Size: A property F fails to be collectivising iff there are as many Fs as there are objects. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (Iteration Again [1989]) by Michael Potter - Set Theory and Its Philosophy 13.5 |
| 10699 | Does a bowl of Cheerios contain all its sets and subsets? [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Is there, in addition to the 200 Cheerios in a bowl, also a set of them all? And what about the vast number of subsets of Cheerios? It is haywire to think that when you have some Cheerios you are eating a set. What you are doing is: eating the Cheerios. | |
| From: George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], p.72) | |
| A reaction: In my case Boolos is preaching to the converted. I am particularly bewildered by someone (i.e. Quine) who believes that innumerable sets exist while 'having a taste for desert landscapes' in their ontology. |
| 14249 | Boolos reinterprets second-order logic as plural logic [Boolos, by Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Boolos's conception of plural logic is as a reinterpretation of second-order logic. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975]) by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? n5 | |
| A reaction: Oliver and Smiley don't accept this view, and champion plural reference differently (as, I think, some kind of metalinguistic device?). |
| 10225 | Monadic second-order logic might be understood in terms of plural quantifiers [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Boolos has proposed an alternative understanding of monadic, second-order logic, in terms of plural quantifiers, which many philosophers have found attractive. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 3.5 |
| 10830 | Second-order logic metatheory is set-theoretic, and second-order validity has set-theoretic problems [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: The metatheory of second-order logic is hopelessly set-theoretic, and the notion of second-order validity possesses many if not all of the epistemic debilities of the notion of set-theoretic truth. | |
| From: George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975], p.45) | |
| A reaction: Epistemic problems arise when a logic is incomplete, because some of the so-called truths cannot be proved, and hence may be unreachable. This idea indicates Boolos's motivation for developing a theory of plural quantification. |
| 10736 | Boolos showed how plural quantifiers can interpret monadic second-order logic [Boolos, by Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: In an indisputable technical result, Boolos showed how plural quantifiers can be used to interpret monadic second-order logic. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], Intro) by Øystein Linnebo - Plural Quantification Exposed Intro |
| 10780 | Any sentence of monadic second-order logic can be translated into plural first-order logic [Boolos, by Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Boolos discovered that any sentence of monadic second-order logic can be translated into plural first-order logic. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], §1) by Øystein Linnebo - Plural Quantification Exposed p.74 |
| 10829 | A sentence can't be a truth of logic if it asserts the existence of certain sets [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: One may be of the opinion that no sentence ought to be considered as a truth of logic if, no matter how it is interpreted, it asserts that there are sets of certain sorts. | |
| From: George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975], p.44) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that in no way should any proper logic assert the existence of anything at all. Presumably interpretations can assert the existence of numbers or sets, but we should be able to identify something which is 'pure' logic. Natural deduction? |
| 10697 | Identity is clearly a logical concept, and greatly enhances predicate calculus [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Indispensable to cross-reference, lacking distinctive content, and pervading thought and discourse, 'identity' is without question a logical concept. Adding it to predicate calculus significantly increases the number and variety of inferences possible. | |
| From: George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], p.54) | |
| A reaction: It is not at all clear to me that identity is a logical concept. Is 'existence' a logical concept? It seems to fit all of Boolos's criteria? I say that all he really means is that it is basic to thought, but I'm not sure it drives the reasoning process. |
| 10832 | '∀x x=x' only means 'everything is identical to itself' if the range of 'everything' is fixed [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: One may say that '∀x x=x' means 'everything is identical to itself', but one must realise that one's answer has a determinate sense only if the reference (range) of 'everything' is fixed. | |
| From: George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975], p.46) | |
| A reaction: This is the problem now discussed in the recent book 'Absolute Generality', of whether one can quantify without specifying a fixed or limited domain. |
| 13671 | Second-order quantifiers are just like plural quantifiers in ordinary language, with no extra ontology [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Boolos proposes that second-order quantifiers be regarded as 'plural quantifiers' are in ordinary language, and has developed a semantics along those lines. In this way they introduce no new ontology. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984]) by Stewart Shapiro - Foundations without Foundationalism 7 n32 | |
| A reaction: This presumably has to treat simple predicates and relations as simply groups of objects, rather than having platonic existence, or something. |
| 10267 | We should understand second-order existential quantifiers as plural quantifiers [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Standard second-order existential quantifiers pick out a class or a property, but Boolos suggests that they be understood as a plural quantifier, like 'there are objects' or 'there are people'. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.4 | |
| A reaction: This idea has potential application to mathematics, and Lewis (1991, 1993) 'invokes it to develop an eliminative structuralism' (Shapiro). |
| 10698 | Plural forms have no more ontological commitment than to first-order objects [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Abandon the idea that use of plural forms must always be understood to commit one to the existence of sets of those things to which the corresponding singular forms apply. | |
| From: George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], p.66) | |
| A reaction: It seems to be an open question whether plural quantification is first- or second-order, but it looks as if it is a rewriting of the first-order. |
| 7806 | Boolos invented plural quantification [Boolos, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Boolos virtually patented the new device of plural quantification. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984]) by José A. Benardete - Logic and Ontology | |
| A reaction: This would be 'there are some things such that...' |
| 10834 | Weak completeness: if it is valid, it is provable. Strong: it is provable from a set of sentences [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: A weak completeness theorem shows that a sentence is provable whenever it is valid; a strong theorem, that a sentence is provable from a set of sentences whenever it is a logical consequence of the set. | |
| From: George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975], p.52) | |
| A reaction: So the weak version says |- φ → |= φ, and the strong versions says Γ |- φ → Γ |= φ. Presumably it is stronger if it can specify the source of the inference. |
| 13841 | Why should compactness be definitive of logic? [Boolos, by Hacking] |
| Full Idea: Boolos asks why on earth compactness, whatever its virtues, should be definitive of logic itself. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975]) by Ian Hacking - What is Logic? §13 |
| 10491 | Infinite natural numbers is as obvious as infinite sentences in English [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: The existence of infinitely many natural numbers seems to me no more troubling than that of infinitely many computer programs or sentences of English. There is, for example, no longest sentence, since any number of 'very's can be inserted. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.129) | |
| A reaction: If you really resisted an infinity of natural numbers, presumably you would also resist an actual infinity of 'very's. The fact that it is unclear what could ever stop a process doesn't guarantee that the process is actually endless. |
| 10483 | Mathematics and science do not require very high orders of infinity [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge nothing in mathematics or science requires the existence of very high orders of infinity. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.122) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to particular high orders of infinity implied by set theory. Personally I want to wield Ockham's Razor. Is being implied by set theory a sufficient reason to accept such outrageous entities into our ontology? |
| 10833 | Many concepts can only be expressed by second-order logic [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: The notions of infinity and countability can be characterized by second-order sentences, though not by first-order sentences (as compactness and Skolem-Löwenheim theorems show), .. as well as well-ordering, progression, ancestral and identity. | |
| From: George Boolos (On Second-Order Logic [1975], p.48) |
| 10490 | Mathematics isn't surprising, given that we experience many objects as abstract [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: It is no surprise that we should be able to reason mathematically about many of the things we experience, for they are already 'abstract'. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.129) | |
| A reaction: He has just given a list of exemplary abstract objects (Idea 10489), but I think there is a more interesting idea here - that our experience of actual physical objects is to some extent abstract, as soon as it is conceptualised. |
| 16050 | The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Characteristic of value-words is that they name 'supervenient' properties. If we are discussing whether a picture is a good picture, ..and there is another picture that is a replica of it, we cannot say 'they are alike, but one is good and the other not'. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Horgan says this is the passage which introduced 'supervenience' into contemporary discussions. I think the best simple word for it is that the goodness of the picture 'tracks' its physical characteristics. It also depend on them. |
| 10700 | First- and second-order quantifiers are two ways of referring to the same things [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Ontological commitment is carried by first-order quantifiers; a second-order quantifier needn't be taken to be a first-order quantifier in disguise, having special items, collections, as its range. They are two ways of referring to the same things. | |
| From: George Boolos (To be is to be the value of a variable.. [1984], p.72) | |
| A reaction: If second-order quantifiers are just a way of referring, then we can see first-order quantifiers that way too, so we could deny 'objects'. |
| 10488 | It is lunacy to think we only see ink-marks, and not word-types [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: It's a kind of lunacy to think that sound scientific philosophy demands that we think that we see ink-tracks but not words, i.e. word-types. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.128) | |
| A reaction: This seems to link him with Armstrong's mockery of 'ostrich nominalism'. There seems to be some ambiguity with the word 'see' in this disagreement. When we look at very ancient scratches on stones, why don't we always 'see' if it is words? |
| 10487 | I am a fan of abstract objects, and confident of their existence [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: I am rather a fan of abstract objects, and confident of their existence. Smaller numbers, sets and functions don't offend my sense of reality. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.128) | |
| A reaction: The great Boolos is rather hard to disagree with, but I disagree. Logicians love abstract objects, indeed they would almost be out of a job without them. It seems to me they smuggle them into our ontology by redefining either 'object' or 'exists'. |
| 10489 | We deal with abstract objects all the time: software, poems, mistakes, triangles.. [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: We twentieth century city dwellers deal with abstract objects all the time, such as bank balances, radio programs, software, newspaper articles, poems, mistakes, triangles. | |
| From: George Boolos (Must We Believe in Set Theory? [1997], p.129) | |
| A reaction: I find this claim to be totally question-begging, and typical of a logician. The word 'object' gets horribly stretched in these discussions. We can create concepts which have all the logical properties of objects. Maybe they just 'subsist'? |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 8693 | An 'abstraction principle' says two things are identical if they are 'equivalent' in some respect [Boolos] |
| Full Idea: Hume's Principle has a structure Boolos calls an 'abstraction principle'. Within the scope of two universal quantifiers, a biconditional connects an identity between two things and an equivalence relation. It says we don't care about other differences. | |
| From: George Boolos (Is Hume's Principle analytic? [1997]), quoted by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.7 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the traditional principle of abstraction by ignoring some properties, but dressed up in the clothes of formal logic. Frege tries to eliminate psychology, but Boolos implies that what we 'care about' is relevant. |
| 2705 | How can intuitionists distinguish universal convictions from local cultural ones? [Hare] |
| Full Idea: There are convictions which are common to most societies; but there are others which are not, and no way is given by intuitionists of telling which are the authoritative data. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.454) | |
| A reaction: It seems unfair on intuitionists to say they haven't given a way to evaluate such things, given that they have offered intuition. The issue is what exactly they mean by 'intuition'. |
| 2712 | You can't use intuitions to decide which intuitions you should cultivate [Hare] |
| Full Idea: If it comes to deciding what intuitions and dispositions to cultivate, we cannot rely on the intuitions themselves, as intuitionists do. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.461) | |
| A reaction: Makes intuitionists sound a bit dim. Surely Hume identifies dispositions (such as benevolence) which should be cultivated, because they self-evidently improve social life? |
| 2706 | Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Emotivists concluded too hastily that because naturalism and intuitionism are false, you cannot reason about moral questions, because they assumed that the only questions you can reason about are factual ones. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
| A reaction: Personally I have a naturalistic view of ethics (based on successful functioning, as indicated by Aristotle), so not my prob. Why can't we reason about expressive emotions? We reason about art. |
| 2709 | Prescriptivism sees 'ought' statements as imperatives which are universalisable [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Universal prescriptivists hold that 'ought'-judgements are prescriptive like plain imperatives, but differ from them in being universalisable. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.457) | |
| A reaction: Sounds a bit tautological. Which comes first, the normativity or the universalisability? |
| 2704 | If morality is just a natural or intuitive description, that leads to relativism [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Non-descriptivists (e.g. prescriptivists) reject descriptivism in its naturalist or intuitionist form, because they are both destined to collapse into relativism. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.453) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear from this why prescriptism would not also turn out to be relativist, if it includes evaluations along with facts. |
| 2855 | In primary evaluative words like 'ought' prescription is constant but description can vary [Hare, by Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Hare says words are secondarily evaluative (e.g. 'soft-hearted') if prescriptive meaning varies but description is constant; primarily evaluative words ('good', 'right', 'ought') are the opposite, with the descriptive content varying. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952]) by Brad W. Hooker - Prescriptivism p.640 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that the prescriptive meaning of the evaluative word could at least vary in strength. You really, really ought to do that. |
| 22331 | Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock] |
| Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9 | |
| A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement? |
| 22484 | Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191 | |
| A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea. |
| 4125 | Hare says I acquire an agglomeration of preferences by role-reversal, leading to utilitarianism [Hare, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: In Hare's theory I apply a "role-reversal test", and then acquire an actual agglomeration of preferences that apply to the hypothetical situation. The result is utilitarianism. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: It hits that traditional stumbling block, of why I should care about the preferences of others. Pure reason and empathy are the options (Kant or Hume). I may, however, lack both. |
| 4126 | If we have to want the preferences of the many, we have to abandon our own deeply-held views [Williams,B on Hare] |
| Full Idea: Hare's version of utilitarianism requires an agent to abandon any deeply held principle or conviction if a large enough aggregate of contrary preferences, of whatever kind, favours a contrary action. | |
| From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This nicely attacks any impersonal moral theory, whether it is based on reason or preferences. But where did my personal ideals come from? |
| 4127 | If morality is to be built on identification with the preferences of others, I must agree with their errors [Williams,B on Hare] |
| Full Idea: If there is to be total identification with others, then if another's preferences are mistaken, the preferences I imagine myself into are equally mistaken, and if 'identification' is the point, they should remain mistaken. | |
| From: comment on Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Yes. The core of morality must be judgement. Robots can implement universal utilitarian rules, but they could end up promoting persecutions of minorities. |
| 22483 | A judgement is presciptive if we expect it to be acted on [Hare] |
| Full Idea: We say something prescriptive if and only if, for some act A, some situation S and some person R, if P were to assent (orally) to what we say, and not, in S, do A, he logically must be assenting insincerely. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], p.21), quoted by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.190 | |
| A reaction: Foot offers this as Hare's most explicit definition. The use of algebra strikes me as ludicrous. In logic letters have the virtue of not shifting their meaning during an argument, but that is not required here. |
| 2703 | Descriptivism say ethical meaning is just truth-conditions; prescriptivism adds an evaluation [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Ethical descriptivism is the view that ethical sentence-meaning is wholly determined by truth-conditions. …Prescriptivists think there is a further element of meaning, which expresses prescriptions or evaluations or attitudes which we assent to. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.452) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand either of these. If all meaning consists of truth-conditions, that will apply to ethics. If meaning includes evaluations, that will apply to non-ethics. |
| 2707 | If there can be contradictory prescriptions, then reasoning must be involved [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivists claim that there are rules of reasoning which govern non-descriptive as well as descriptive speech acts. The standard example is possible logical inconsistency between contradictory prescriptions. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
| A reaction: The example doesn't seem very good. Inconsistency can appear in any area of thought, but that isn't enough to infer full 'rules of reasoning'. I could desire two incompatible crazy things. |
| 2708 | An 'ought' statement implies universal application [Hare] |
| Full Idea: In any 'ought' statement there is implicit a principle which says that the statement applies to all precisely similar situations. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.456) | |
| A reaction: No two situations can ever be 'precisely' similar. Indeed, 'precisely similar' may be an oxymoron (at least for situations). Kantians presumably like this idea. |
| 2711 | Prescriptivism implies a commitment, but descriptivism doesn't [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivists hold that moral judgements commit the speaker to motivations and actions, but non-moral facts by themselves do not do this. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.459) | |
| A reaction: Surely hunger motivates to action? I suppose the key word is 'commit'. But lazy people are allowed to make moral judgements. |
| 4360 | By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright [Hare] |
| Full Idea: By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point [1981], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: Yes. This is the route which takes us from enlightened self-interest to a vision of true morality. Virtue is found to be its own reward, thought that is not how we became virtuous to begin with. |
| 2710 | Moral judgements must invoke some sort of principle [Hare] |
| Full Idea: To make moral judgements is implicitly to invoke some principle, however specific. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.458) |
| 6449 | The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality | |
| A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised. |