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| 24219 | My neighbour's pleasure can't be an end for me |
| Full Idea: Once [utilitarians make it] a question of my neighbour's pleasure, it is no longer an end for me. That is just a philosophical fraud. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.166) | |||
| A reaction: The point seems to be the difficulty of motivation towards a 'universal good'. But then how are we to care about the 'general good' of our whole society? We don't clear up litter for the sake of individuals. 'Pleasure', or 'benefit'? |
| 24221 | Equality is the result of unlimited freedom |
| Full Idea: Equality has its origin in freedom: once one has power over the unlimited faculty of freedom, everyone is equal. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.182) | |||
| A reaction: Equality seems to result from unconditional respect - so what is the basis of that? We respect rationality, or pain, or mere humanity. If she is implying anarchism, equality seems an unlikely consequence of that. |
| 24222 | If we ignore all our thoughts of the past and the future, there is nothing left of the present |
| Full Idea: What would be left of our thought if we were to leave out of the account all the thoughts which have to do with the future and the past? Nothing would be left. So what we do possess, the present, is something non-existent. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.198) | |||
| A reaction: Yet another paradox of the weirdness of the present moment. For idealists that means the present doesn't exist, so either time is eternal, or non-existent. Or fragmentary, if it only consists of our thoughts. |
| 24220 | As the highest value, God cannot be proved |
| Full Idea: By definition, in so far as he is the highest value, God is indemonstrable. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.171) | |||
| A reaction: An extremely platonist (or neo-platonist) view of God. I'm not sure I grasp how God could be both a being and a value. Presumably a proof must rely on a highest value. |