7 ideas
| 22331 | Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock] |
| Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9 | |
| A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement? |
| 22484 | Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191 | |
| A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 6449 | The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality | |
| A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised. |
| 22974 | Presentists lack the materials for a realist view of change [Price,H] |
| Full Idea: The presentist view seems to have lost the materials for a realist view of passage, change or temporal transition. | |
| From: Huw Price (The Flow of Time [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: It is a nice point. How can a presentist talk of change if the only component that exists is the present time slice? Price says change can only be a kind of fiction for the presentist. Change in existence and in properties are distinct concepts. |
| 22973 | The present moment, time's direction, and time's dynamic quality seem to be objective facts [Price,H] |
| Full Idea: The flow of time seems to be an objective feature of reality because of 1) the present moment can be objectively distinguished, 2) time has an objective direction, of earlier and later, and 3) there is something objectively dynamic about time. | |
| From: Huw Price (The Flow of Time [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Price sets out to undermine all three of these claims, in implicit defence of a psychological view. I disagree with him. |
| 22975 | We must explain either the existence of a time direction, or our psychological sense of it [Price,H] |
| Full Idea: If the world comes equipped with a time orientation, where does it come from? If it doesn't, what explains our psychological feeling of a direction for time? | |
| From: Huw Price (The Flow of Time [2011], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: The chances of 'explaining' either one look slim to me. That is, the fact would explain our experience, but the experience without the fact looks ridiculous, and I cannot conceive of any time-free entity which could explain the fact. |