3 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? |
21788 | The moral will is self-determining, but the ethical will is met in society [Houlgate] |
Full Idea: Whereas the moral will understands the good to be something which it can recognise or determine by itself, the ethical will acknowledges the good to be something actual which it encounters in the world about it. | |
From: Stephen Houlgate (An Introduction to Hegel [1991], 08 'Freedom') | |
A reaction: I think these two terms have become blurred - or at least I have thoroughly lost track of them. I'm not sure whether it is good to have distinct terms for (Kantian) personal choice and for social expectations. Ethics is what Nietzsche attacks. |
22454 | We tolerate inconsistency in ethics but not in other beliefs (which reflect an independent order) [Williams,B, by Foot] |
Full Idea: Williams argued that we can tolerate inconsistency in moral principles though not in assertions, and that this is explained by the fact that it is the concern of the latter but not of the former to reflect an 'independent order of things'. | |
From: report of Bernard Williams (Consistency and realism (with 1972 note) [1966]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma p.37 | |
A reaction: Put like this, Williams seems to beg the question, which is whether there is an independent moral order to things. There seems to be an easy answer, which is that we are only intolerant of inconsistency when we are confident about it. |