98 ideas
| 8013 | In the Reformation, morality became unconditional but irrational, individually autonomous, and secular [MacIntyre] |
| 8021 | The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality [MacIntyre] |
| 8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
| 8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
| 8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
| 8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
| 16661 | There are two sorts of category - referring to things, and to circumstances of things [Boethius] |
| 15035 | If universals are not separate, we can isolate them by abstraction [Boethius, by Panaccio] |
| 14665 | We can call the quality of Plato 'Platonity', and say it is a quality which only he possesses [Boethius] |
| 23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
| 8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
| 10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
| 8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
| 8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
| 20043 | Evolutionary explanations look to the past or the group, not to the individual [Stout,R] |
| 20058 | Not all explanation is causal. We don't explain a painting's beauty, or the irrationality of root-2, that way [Stout,R] |
| 8006 | When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre] |
| 21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
| 5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
| 5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
| 5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
| 5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
| 8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
| 20035 | Philosophy of action studies the nature of agency, and of deliberate actions [Stout,R] |
| 20084 | Agency is causal processes that are sensitive to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20061 | Mental states and actions need to be separate, if one is to cause the other [Stout,R] |
| 20079 | Are actions bodily movements, or a sequence of intention-movement-result? [Stout,R] |
| 20080 | If one action leads to another, does it cause it, or is it part of it? [Stout,R] |
| 20059 | I do actions, but not events, so actions are not events [Stout,R] |
| 20081 | Bicycle riding is not just bodily movement - you also have to be on the bicycle [Stout,R] |
| 20044 | The rationalistic approach says actions are intentional when subject to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20039 | The causal theory says that actions are intentional when intention (or belief-desire) causes the act [Stout,R] |
| 20047 | Deciding what to do usually involves consulting the world, not our own minds [Stout,R] |
| 20065 | Should we study intentions in their own right, or only as part of intentional action? [Stout,R] |
| 20067 | You can have incompatible desires, but your intentions really ought to be consistent [Stout,R] |
| 20078 | The normativity of intentions would be obvious if they were internal promises [Stout,R] |
| 20036 | Intentional agency is seen in internal precursors of action, and in external reasons for the act [Stout,R] |
| 20066 | Speech needs sustained intentions, but not prior intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20073 | Bratman has to treat shared intentions as interrelated individual intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20069 | A request to pass the salt shares an intention that the request be passed on [Stout,R] |
| 20070 | An individual cannot express the intention that a group do something like moving a piano [Stout,R] |
| 20071 | An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group [Stout,R] |
| 20038 | If the action of walking is just an act of will, then movement of the legs seems irrelevant [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20077 | If you can judge one act as best, then do another, this supports an inward-looking view of agency [Stout,R] |
| 20049 | Maybe your emotions arise from you motivations, rather than being their cause [Stout,R] |
| 20046 | For an ascetic a powerful desire for something is a reason not to implement it [Stout,R] |
| 5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
| 20060 | Beliefs, desires and intentions are not events, so can't figure in causal relations [Stout,R] |
| 20055 | A standard view says that the explanation of an action is showing its rational justification [Stout,R] |
| 20056 | In order to be causal, an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states [Stout,R] |
| 20053 | An action is only yours if you produce it, rather than some state or event within you [Stout,R] |
| 20048 | There may be a justification relative to a person's view, and yet no absolute justification [Stout,R] |
| 20068 | Describing a death as a side-effect rather than a goal may just be good public relations [Stout,R] |
| 8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
| 8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
| 8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
| 8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
| 5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
| 8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
| 5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
| 8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
| 8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
| 8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
| 8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
| 8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
| 8012 | The value/fact logical gulf is misleading, because social facts involve values [MacIntyre] |
| 5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
| 8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
| 5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
| 8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
| 7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
| 8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
| 8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
| 5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
| 8001 | 'Dikaiosune' is justice, but also fairness and personal integrity [MacIntyre] |
| 8023 | My duties depend on my identity, which depends on my social relations [MacIntyre] |
| 8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
| 8022 | I am naturally free if I am not tied to anyone by a contract [MacIntyre] |
| 8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
| 23080 | Liberals debate how conservative or radical to be, but don't question their basics [MacIntyre] |
| 5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
| 8031 | Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre] |
| 20083 | Aristotelian causation involves potentiality inputs into processes (rather than a pair of events) [Stout,R] |
| 8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
| 16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| 5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
| 5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
| 8008 | The Bible is a story about God in which humans are incidental characters [MacIntyre] |
| 5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
| 5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
| 5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |