9 ideas
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 1477 | Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c) | |
| A reaction: This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues. |
| 22410 | Maybe the unthinkable is a moral category, and considering some options is dishonourable or absurd [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: One might have the idea that the unthinkable was itself a moral category. ...Regarding certain things even as alternatives is itself something to be regarded as dishonourable or morally absurd. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (A Critique of Utilitarianism [1973], 2) | |
| A reaction: He's very tentative about this, but I think it is a powerful moral idea. See Kekes. He is particularly aiming at utilitarians, who happily assess vile possibilities. |
| 22408 | Consequentialism assumes that situations can be compared [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The emphasis on the necessary comparability of situations is a peculiar feature of consequentialism in general. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (A Critique of Utilitarianism [1973], 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice point. Utilitarians might achieve comparison by totting up the happiness in each situation, but once you include the consequences of the consequences the problems are obvious. Was 1789 a good thing? Too early to say. |
| 22411 | For a consequentialist massacring 7 million must be better than massacring 7 million and one [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Making the best of a bad job is a consequentialist maxim, and it will have something to say even pn the difference between massacring seven million and massacring seven million and one. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (A Critique of Utilitarianism [1973], 2) | |
| A reaction: If every life counts, the consequentialists have got something right here. Not caring exactly how many were massacred is a sort of callousness (even when the number can't be established). |
| 1478 | Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d) | |
| A reaction: A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull? |
| 22409 | We don't have a duty to ensure that others do their duty [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If the goodness of the world were to consist in people's fulfilling their obligations, it would by no means follow that one of my obligations was to bring it about that other people kept their obligations | |
| From: Bernard Williams (A Critique of Utilitarianism [1973], 2) | |
| A reaction: If the maxim of my action is 'ensure that everyone does their duty', presumably that can be universalised. Nelson thought so. It just sounds like a hideous world of self-righteous interference. |
| 22407 | Utilitarianism cannot make any serious sense of integrity [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism cannot hope to make sense, at any serious level, of integrity. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (A Critique of Utilitarianism [1973], 1) | |
| A reaction: There will be obvious problems with this. 'My whole platoon got killed, but looking on the bright side, I preserved my integrity'. Once a theory commits entirely to one value, it then has no way to make sense of rival values. |
| 1479 | Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Because animals value pleasure very little, they have not been led into sex between males or between females. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d) |