|
1350
|
Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence….Otherwise we must suppose a being to exist after it has ceased to exist, and to have existed before it was produced, which are manifest contradictions.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
I take the point to be that if something is supposed to survive a gap in its existence, that must imply that it somehow exists during the gap. If a light flashes on and off, is it really a new entity each time?
|
|
21322
|
We treat slowly changing things as identical for the sake of economy in language [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
All bodies, as they consist of innumerable parts, are subject to continual changes of their substance. When such changes are gradual, because language could not afford a different name for each state, it retains the same name and is considered the same.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
This is hard to deny. We could hardly rename a child each morning. Simlarly, we can't have a unique name for each leaf on a tree. Economy of language explains a huge amount in philosophy.
|
|
23643
|
We all trust our distinct memories (but not our distinct imaginings) [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Every man feels he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason for his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly; whereas, when he merely distinctly imagines a thing, he has no belief in it upon that account.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
The word 'distinct' is doing some heavy work here. I fear that believing the memory is the only criterion we have for calling it distinct. As a boy I was persuaded to change my testimony about a car accident, and I realised I was not distinct about it.
|
|
1356
|
A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
The identity of a person is a perfect identity: wherever it is real, it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible that a person should be in part the same, and in part different; because a person is a 'monad', and is not divisible into parts.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
I don't accept this, because I don't accept the metaphysics needed to underpin it. To watch a person with Alzheimer's disease fade out of existence before they die seems sufficient counter-evidence. I believe in personal identity, but it isn't 'perfect'.
|
|
1359
|
Personal identity is the basis of all rights, obligations and responsibility [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Identity, when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, and admits of no degrees. It is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and of all accountableness.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to me to be one of the key mistakes in all of philosophy - thinking that items must always be all-or-nothing. If a person deteriorates through Alzheimer's, there seem to be obvious degrees of personhood. Responsibility comes in degrees, too.
|
|
21323
|
The identity of a thief is only known by similarity, but memory gives certainty in our own case [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
A man challenges a thief in possession of his horse only on similarity. The testimony of witnesses to the identity of a person is commonly grounded on no other evidence. ...Evidence of our own identity is grounded in memory, and gives undoubted certainty.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
With other people the best we can hope for is type-identity, hoping that each individual being is a unique type, but with otherselves we are always confident of establishing token identity. Could I have been someone different yesterday, without realising?
|
|
21325
|
Boy same as young man, young man same as old man, old man not boy, if forgotten! [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Suppose a brave officer, flogged as a boy for robbing an orchard, to have captured a standard in his first campaign, and become a general in advanced life. [If the general forgets the flogging] he is and at the same time is not the same as the boy.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
|
|
A reaction:
The point is that strict identity has to be transitive, and if the general forgets his boyhood that breaks the transitivity. If identity is less strict there is no problem. The general may only have memories related to some part of his boyhood.
|
|
1352
|
Thoughts change continually, but the self doesn't [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
My thoughts, and actions, and feelings, change every moment: they have no continued, but a successive, existence: but that self, or I, to which they belong, is permanent.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
The word 'permanent' may be excessive, but one could hardly say there is nothing more to personal identity than the contents of consciousnes, given how much and how quickly those continually fluctuate.
|
|
6248
|
Reason is too slow and doubtful to guide all actions, which need external and moral senses [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
We boast of our mighty reason above other animals, but its processes are too slow, too full of doubt, to serve us in every exigency, either for our preservation, without external senses, or to influence our actions for good without the moral sense.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.III)
|
|
A reaction:
This idea was taken up by Hume, and it must have influence Hume's general scepticism about the importance of reason. What this idea misses is the enormous influence of prior reasoning on our quick decisions.
|
|
6239
|
We dislike a traitor, even if they give us great benefit [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
Let us consider if a traitor, who would sell his own country to us, may not often be as advantageous to us, as an hero who defends us: and yet we can love the treason, and hate the traitor.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §I.VI)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice example, which certainly refutes any claim that morality is entirely and directly self-interested. High-minded idealism, though, is not the only alternative explanation. We admire loyalty, but not loyalty to, say, Hitler.
|
|
6240
|
The moral sense is not an innate idea, but an ability to approve or disapprove in a disinterested way [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
The moral sense is not an innate idea or knowledge, but a determination of our minds to receive the simple ideas of approbation or condemnation, from actions observed, antecedent to any opinions of advantage or loss to redound to ourselves.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §I.VIII)
|
|
A reaction:
This may claim a pure moral intuition, but it is also close to Kantian universalising of the rules for behaviour. It is also a variation on Descartes' 'natural light' of reason. Of course, if we say the ideas are 'received', where are they received from?
|
|
6242
|
We cannot choose our moral feelings, otherwise bribery could affect them [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
Neither benevolence nor any other affection or desire can be directly raised by volition; if they could, then we could be bribed into any affection whatsoever toward any object.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.IV)
|
|
A reaction:
Of course, notoriously, the vast mass of people have often been bribed to love a politician, by low taxes, or bread and circuses. Still, you cannot choose to love or admire someone, you just do. Not much free will there.
|
|
6244
|
Human nature seems incapable of universal malice, except what results from self-love [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
Human nature seems scarce capable of malicious disinterested hatred, or an ultimate desire of the misery of others, when we imagine them not pernicious to us, or opposite to our interests; ..that is only the effect of self-love, not disinterested malice.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.VII)
|
|
A reaction:
I suppose it is true that even the worst criminals brooding in prison don't wish the entire population of some foreign country to die in pain. Only a very freakish person would wish the human race were extinct. A very nice observation.
|
|
6243
|
As death approaches, why do we still care about family, friends or country? [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
How comes it that we do not lose, at the approach of death, all concern for our families, friends, or country?
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.V)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice question. No doubt some people do cease to care, but on the whole it raises the 'last round' problem in social contract theory, which is why fulfil your part of a bargain if it is too late to receive the repayment afterwards?
|
|
6241
|
Contempt of danger is just madness if it is not in some worthy cause [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
Mere courage, or contempt of danger, if we conceive it to have no regard to the defence of the innocent, or repairing of wrongs or self-interest, would only entitle its possessor to bedlam.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §II.I)
|
|
A reaction:
If many criminals would love to rob a bank, but only a few have the nerve to attempt it, we can hardly deny that the latter exhibit a sort of courage. The Greeks say that good sense must be involved, but few of them were so moral about courage.
|
|
6245
|
That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §III.VIII)
|
|
A reaction:
The first use of a phrase taken up by Bentham. This is not just an anticipation of utilitarianism, it is utilitarianism, with all its commitment to consequentialism (but see Idea 6246), and to the maximising of happiness. It is a brilliant idea.
|
|
6251
|
The loss of perfect rights causes misery, but the loss of imperfect rights reduces social good [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
Perfect rights are necessary to the public good, and it makes those miserable whose rights are thus violated; …imperfect rights tend to the improvement and increase of good in a society, but are not necessary to prevent universal misery.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.VI)
|
|
A reaction:
This is a very utilitarian streak in Hutcheson, converting natural law into its tangible outcome in actual happiness or misery. The distinction here is interesting (taken up by Mill), but there is a very blurred borderline.
|
|
6249
|
If goodness is constituted by God's will, it is a tautology to say God's will is good [Hutcheson]
|
|
Full Idea:
To call the laws of the supreme Deity good or holy or just, if these be constituted by laws, or the will of a superior, must be an insignificant tautology, amounting to no more than 'God wills what he wills' or 'His will is conformable to his will'.
|
|
From:
Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good [1725], §VII.V)
|
|
A reaction:
This argues not only against God as the source of morality, but also against any rules, such as those of the Categorical Imperative. Why should I follow the Categorical Imperative? What has value must dictate the rules. Is obedience the highest value?
|