Test: which moral philosophy is yours (even if you don't know it)

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GePap

How did you misquote Imran in your quote Agathon? That's just weird.

My guess is that he edited his post after I quoted it. Either that or the Apolyton server is a friend of Bentham's.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Agathon


No - that is very bad.

Plato seems distinclty unpopular here, besides with ....you.

Thinking about Philosopher kings, aren't we Agathon?

[Buck Birdseed]

It's quite a shoddily-designed test. Too much metaethics (which most philosophers, at least in this selection, only dealt with as a side issue), too few questions about how the mechanics of moral law-making is supposed to function. They do some sort of half-arsed attempts to hide blatant questions about specific philosopher in a general guise (I'm sure that "libery vs. society" question is really "do you agree with the utilitarians or not?"), they should have gone full-steam-ahead and presented longer, more complex models of each stage like they did with the religion test.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

But it isn't philosophy.

I would disagree strongly.

Where are the arguments and proofs? I mean Homer and Hesiod have views about the way the world is, but they aren't philosophers.

The best case for the Oriental thinkers is that they are on a par with the early pre-Parmenidean philosophers. And that's pushing it because those guys were scientific reductionists.

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by Agathon


No - that is very bad.

You like Plato? You some sort of ****ing fascist or something?

[Rogan Josh]

1. St. Augustine (100%)
2. Aquinas (78%)
3. Spinoza (74%)
4. Ockham (67%)
5. John Stuart Mill (58%)
6. Kant (56%)
7. Jeremy Bentham (54%)
8. Nel Noddings (50%)
9. Plato (44%)
10. Aristotle (42%)
11. Prescriptivism (39%)
12. Epicureans (35%)
13. Jean-Paul Sartre (34%)
14. Cynics (31%)
15. Ayn Rand (21%)
16. Stoics (19%)
17. David Hume (17%)
18. Nietzsche (13%)
19. Thomas Hobbes (2%)

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
It's quite a shoddily-designed test. Too much metaethics (which most philosophers, at least in this selection, only dealt with as a side issue), too few questions about how the mechanics of moral law-making is supposed to function. They do some sort of half-arsed attempts to hide blatant questions about specific philosopher in a general guise (I'm sure that "libery vs. society" question is really "do you agree with the utilitarians or not?"), they should have gone full-steam-ahead and presented longer, more complex models of each stage like they did with the religion test.

I disagree. I think that metaethics is the way to go. All these philosophers had metaethical views which informed their normative views. If you want to know the similarities re: philosophy (i.e. the way you think about morality, rather than your values), it is a good test.

Most of the disagreement on this forum occurs because of differences in metaethical views anyway.

[Paul Hanson]

Originally posted by Agathon


No - that is very bad.

Are you kidding? I've read The Republic from cover to cover and Plato's idea of the ideal society sickens me.

[BeBMan]

1. Jean-Paul Sartre (100%)

2. Kant (95%)

3. Spinoza (90%)

4. Jeremy Bentham (89%)

5. John Stuart Mill (82%)

Sartre surprised me too (and I also don´t know any of his works), Kant I know a bit, so I´m quite satisfied (because I like his ideas).

[Drake Tungsten]

Where are the arguments and proofs?

When did proofs become an integral part of philosophy? That's a distinctly Western concept, so I don't see why Eastern philosophy would incorporate it.

Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism all qualify as philosophies in my view. Maybe you disagree, but claiming that they aren't "philosophy" just because they don't follow Western thought patterns doesn't fly.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Agathon


The founder of utilitarianism and designer of strange prisons. You can look at him if you visit the University of London since his embalmed body is still on display.

Here he is.

When I was there (University College, London) I heard the story about how his head was used as a rugby ball by one of the other colleges.


My #1 was Kant.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed

You like Plato? You some sort of ****ing fascist or something?

Accusations of fascism against Plato are deeply unfair for a few reasons.

1) It isn't clear that the Republic is supposed to be a blueprint for a feasible society. The text doesn't unequivocally support this.

2) In the later works the Statesman and the Laws, things are toned down quite a bit. The Laws is supposed to be a blueprint for a society.

3) Plato had been witness to a massive failure of a democratic state when it was beaten by an authoritarian regime. This had to affect his views.

4) Late Platonic legislation depends on the idea that the prospective inhabitants of the state to be constructed share little in the way of norms or customs.

[Jon Miller]

1. Aquinas (100%)
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2. St. Augustine (79%)
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3. Aristotle (67%)
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4. Spinoza (65%)
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5. Ockham (62%)
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6. Plato (53%)
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7. Jeremy Bentham (52%)
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8. Epicureans (48%)
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9. Nietzsche (46%)
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10. John Stuart Mill (44%)
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11. Stoics (43%)
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12. Ayn Rand (40%)
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13. Nel Noddings (36%)
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14. Cynics (36%)
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15. Kant (33%)
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16. Jean-Paul Sartre (32%)
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17. David Hume (28%)
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18. Prescriptivism (28%)
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19. Thomas Hobbes (12%)
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[Agathon]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Where are the arguments and proofs?

When did proofs become an integral part of philosophy? That's a distinctly Western concept, so I don't see why Eastern philosophy would incorporate it.

Proofs became an integral part of western philosophy after the publication of Parmenides' poem.

Philosophy or Philosophia in Greek is a word coined to describe what these people were doing. The rest of western philosophy is historically and conceptually related to what these people did. Philosophy is a western concept, unless these other people match up in an interesting way with the norms of this tradition, it isn't fair to call them philosophers.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson

Are you kidding? I've read The Republic from cover to cover and Plato's idea of the ideal society sickens me.

Presumably you skipped the bit where Socrates says that the city described in the Republic is "an image laid up in heaven" - a paradigm of justice. Plato was well aware that this wasn't a feasible scheme. That's why he wrote the Statesman and the Laws.