137 ideas
| 22396 | We take courage, temperance, wisdom and justice as moral, but Aristotle takes wisdom as intellectual [Foot] |
| 22496 | Wisdom only implies the knowledge achievable in any normal lifetime [Foot] |
| 22397 | Wisdom is open to all, and not just to the clever or well trained [Foot] |
| 3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
| 3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
| 3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
| 22462 | We should speak the truth, but also preserve and pursue it [Foot] |
| 3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
| 3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
| 3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
| 1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
| 3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
| 3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
| 12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
| 3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
| 3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
| 3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
| 1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
| 3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
| 3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
| 3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
| 3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
| 22449 | When we say 'is red' we don't mean 'seems red to most people' [Foot] |
| 1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1547 | Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras] |
| 3305 | There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 3313 | If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 3317 | You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 247 | God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 606 | Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 612 | Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 22371 | Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot] |
| 23438 | Full rationality must include morality [Foot] |
| 23437 | Practical reason is goodness in choosing actions [Foot] |
| 22480 | Possessing the virtue of justice disposes a person to good practical rationality [Foot] |
| 23694 | All criterions of practical rationality derive from goodness of will [Foot] |
| 22372 | Not all actions need motives, but it is irrational to perform troublesome actions with no motive [Foot] |
| 22393 | I don't understand the idea of a reason for acting, but it is probably the agent's interests or desires [Foot] |
| 23436 | It is an odd Humean view to think a reason to act must always involve caring [Foot] |
| 22481 | There is no restitution after a dilemma, if it only involved the agent, or just needed an explanation [Foot, by PG] |
| 22482 | I can't understand how someone can be necessarily wrong whatever he does [Foot] |
| 22465 | We see a moral distinction between doing and allowing to happen [Foot] |
| 22384 | A 'double effect' is a foreseen but not desired side-effect, which may be forgivable [Foot] |
| 22385 | The doctrine of double effect can excuse an outcome because it wasn't directly intended [Foot] |
| 22386 | Double effect says foreseeing you will kill someone is not the same as intending it [Foot] |
| 22387 | Without double effect, bad men can make us do evil by threatening something worse [Foot] |
| 22388 | Double effect seems to rely on a distinction between what we do and what we allow [Foot] |
| 22466 | We see a moral distinction between our aims and their foreseen consequences [Foot] |
| 22467 | Acts and omissions only matter if they concern doing something versus allowing it [Foot] |
| 4692 | It is not true that killing and allowing to die (or acts and omissions) are morally indistinguishable [Foot] |
| 4694 | Making a runaway tram kill one person instead of five is diverting a fatal sequence, not initiating one [Foot] |
| 22445 | Morality shows murder is wrong, but not what counts as a murder [Foot] |
| 22444 | A moral system must deal with the dangers and benefits of life [Foot] |
| 23683 | Moral norms are objective, connected to facts about human goods [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 22392 | Morality is inescapable, in descriptive words such as 'dishonest', 'unjust' and 'uncharitable' [Foot] |
| 22451 | All people need affection, cooperation, community and help in trouble [Foot] |
| 22485 | Non-cognitivists give the conditions of use of moral sentences as facts about the speaker [Foot] |
| 22474 | Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot] |
| 23684 | Morality gives everyone reasons to act, irrespective of their desires [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 23690 | We all have reason to cultivate the virtues, even when we lack the desire [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 23685 | Reason is not a motivator of morality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 23691 | Rejecting moral rules may be villainous, but it isn't inconsistent [Foot] |
| 23686 | Moral reason is not just neutral, because morality is part of the standard of rationality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 23693 | Practical rationality must weigh both what is morally and what is non-morally required [Foot] |
| 23431 | Human defects are just like plant or animal defects [Foot] |
| 23687 | Moral virtues arise from human nature, as part of what makes us good human beings [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| 22477 | Calling a knife or farmer or speech or root good does not involve attitudes or feelings [Foot] |
| 22486 | The mistake is to think good grounds aren't enough for moral judgement, which also needs feelings [Foot] |
| 6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
| 23433 | Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot] |
| 23432 | Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot] |
| 22375 | Moral judgements need more than the relevant facts, if the same facts lead to 'x is good' and 'x is bad' [Foot] |
| 22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |
| 22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
| 22377 | Whether someone is rude is judged by agreed criteria, so the facts dictate the value [Foot] |
| 22378 | We can't affirm a duty without saying why it matters if it is not performed [Foot] |
| 22487 | Moral arguments are grounded in human facts [Foot] |
| 22376 | Facts and values are connected if we cannot choose what counts as evidence of rightness [Foot] |
| 22491 | Moral evaluations are not separate from facts, but concern particular facts about functioning [Foot] |
| 23434 | There is no fact-value gap in 'owls should see in the dark' [Foot] |
| 22447 | Saying something 'just is' right or wrong creates an illusion of fact and objectivity [Foot] |
| 22452 | Do we have a concept of value, other than wanting something, or making an effort to get it? [Foot] |
| 23439 | Principles are not ultimate, but arise from the necessities of human life [Foot] |
| 23435 | If you demonstrate the reason to act, there is no further question of 'why should I?' [Foot] |
| 22381 | Being a good father seems to depend on intentions, rather than actual abilities [Foot] |
| 22379 | The meaning of 'good' and other evaluations must include the object to which they attach [Foot] |
| 22458 | Consequentialists can hurt the innocent in order to prevent further wickedness [Foot] |
| 22460 | Why might we think that a state of affairs can be morally good or bad? [Foot] |
| 22461 | Good outcomes are not external guides to morality, but a part of virtuous actions [Foot] |
| 22464 | The idea of a good state of affairs has no role in the thought of Aristotle, Rawls or Scanlon [Foot] |
| 22497 | Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life [Foot] |
| 22498 | Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends [Foot] |
| 23695 | Good actions can never be justified by the good they brings to their agent [Foot] |
| 1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
| 22470 | A good moral system benefits its participants, and so demands reciprocity [Foot] |
| 22499 | We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life [Foot] |
| 22402 | Most people think virtues can be displayed in bad actions [Foot] |
| 23145 | Virtues are intended to correct design flaws in human beings [Foot, by Driver] |
| 22401 | Actions can be in accordance with virtue, but without actually being virtuous [Foot] |
| 22398 | Virtues are corrective, to resist temptation or strengthen motivation [Foot] |
| 22478 | The essential thing is the 'needs' of plants and animals, and their operative parts [Foot] |
| 23692 | Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot] |
| 22468 | Virtues can have aims, but good states of affairs are not among them [Foot] |
| 205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 22373 | People can act out of vanity without being vain, or even vain about this kind of thing [Foot] |
| 22495 | Someone is a good person because of their rational will, not their body or memory [Foot] |
| 22456 | Maybe virtues conflict with each other, if some virtue needs a vice for its achievement [Foot] |
| 22469 | Some virtues imply rules, and others concern attachment [Foot] |
| 22403 | Temperance is not a virtue if it results from timidity or excessive puritanism [Foot] |
| 22472 | The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot] |
| 22479 | Observing justice is necessary to humans, like hunting to wolves or dancing to bees [Foot] |
| 22400 | Courage overcomes the fears which should be overcome, and doesn't overvalue personal safety [Foot] |
| 22391 | Saying we 'ought to be moral' makes no sense, unless it relates to some other system [Foot] |
| 22389 | Morality no more consists of categorical imperatives than etiquette does [Foot] |
| 22395 | Moral judgements are hypothetical, because they depend on interests and desires [Foot] |
| 22448 | We sometimes just use the word 'should' to impose a rule of conduct on someone [Foot] |
| 22463 | Morality is seen as tacit legislation by the community [Foot] |
| 22459 | For consequentialism, it is irrational to follow a rule which in this instance ends badly [Foot] |
| 22502 | Refraining from murder is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment [Foot] |
| 4693 | The right of non-interference (with a 'negative duty'), and the right to goods/services ('positive') [Foot] |
| 1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
| 532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
| 1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
| 22383 | Abortion is puzzling because we do and don't want the unborn child to have rights [Foot] |
| 22446 | In the case of something lacking independence, calling it a human being is a matter of choice [Foot] |
| 22380 | Some words, such as 'knife', have a meaning which involves its function [Foot] |
| 3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
| 3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |
| 1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |