Ethics
Locke was the same as Hobbes, just more soft and religious in his words.
The letters of toleration are a theological work. Religious is a personal matter; it is about finding a way of being justified, and it depends on your personal beliefs, which no one can force on you.
If the state tries to intervene in the sphere of religion because it is something you yourself have to decide.
For Locke it is not certain what kind of church at the end of the day is actually right.
In Locke, if we choose wrong, we are definitely wrong. There is only one right church, and so we shouldn’t force people into a kind of church that could be wrong.
[In Hobbes, the ruler doesn’t actually decide what kind of morality needs to be followed, rather the morality inheres from the fact of the community itself.]
Locke explained many things in a way that doesn’t go against religious convictions.
We can distinguish between things we need to agree upon on a public vs. Private level.
Our modern liberal tendency to be politically correct, is often about that everyone has the right of their own to decide what they like, and so we shouldn’t interfere in this matter. We need to postpone private arguments, and focus on those matters that necessarily must be public. Now this works as a kind of relativisation which diffuses problems.
This seems like a kind of moral reflex.
The idea is that from the moment you believe that there is a true difference between one choice and another, and everyone should agree on a public level, this causes a societal hierarchy which in turn creates ostracisation.
Consumerism is giving the impression that it is purely up to the consumer about what they may buy, so one can buy very unhealthy food and stupid books, because we don’t want a hierarchical order which focuses on how some are despised for making certain choices.
[At least in the generation before this holds true].
We don’t want to have the idea that the elite may be better than the common people.
One of the problems with this approach is that it is very hypocrticial. At the same time, people were really convinced that a lot of culture was trash, and there was an implicit despite for this marginal people that liked these trash things.
[BBC: to make the good popular, and to make the popular good].
So at the end, the marginalised were more marginalised.
The reason why it is so easy for Trump to defend stupid morality, is by suggesting that his morality is just one among many, and so the type of morality he chooses is not inhumane. Because the distinction inhumane is subjective!
Two treatises of government:
the first is about a discussion with Robert Filmer.
Filmer defends the idea that all authority comes from God, and if we want to understand why the king has power, it is because the king has a certain relation with God.
The treatise tries to explain why this is not the case.
The second is a kind of blueprint of how we deal with politics now a days.
That the people who answer the calls of God seem to be able to know what is right and wrong in a kind of natural way. We have a natural capacity to know what is right or wrong. So he describes how society can be formed through this level of morality.
However, Locke describes how this is very fragile, because there is no rule of law, or instance one can appeal to in order to defend one’s natural moral. So instead, you take justice into your own hand, and all is done by vigilanteeism.
In such a society, the risk that we become like beasts is constantly at face. So a society without courts is unlivable, despite natural law being the case.
So on the one hand, he shows a kind of naive picture of the state of nature, and then describes how fragile the state of nature is.
Earlier than Locke is Spinoza
Strange person. Comes from a jewish tradition, develops a metaphysical approach about how things are, and develops an ethical system which is still relevant.
He starts with the idea that substance is something that is independent of anything else. If we want to think about substance, we need to think of it as one, so that it cannot be disturbed by anything else. The solution then, is that all that appears is a part of that susbtance, and to understand what these elemens are, you need to see how they fit into that everything. Everything is sacred, God and nature.
In this approach, there is a kind of fatality, you cannot change it, it isn’t interested in particular human beings. There is a kind of whole, but this whole is not interested in human beings only, but all other things at the same time.
In chrisitanity and religion, God is usually interested in human beings. In the system of Spinoza, this doesn’t make any sense. Nature is not personal in that sense. This makes his approach modern, similarly in the scientific approach, we find that the big bang and so on is not interested in human beings. Cosmos is disinterested in human beings. At the same time, he believes that within this kind of frame, everything follows what it is supposed to, as natural. All that they like is within their natural capacity, and so all they like is the whole of what they can like and do.
Human beings can only follow nature, they can only do what they can, and all this is natural. Crazy people, also follow natural law, because they are doing those things that nature has ordained for them to do.
But next to that, we are rational, and we can come to a kind of agreement to live together in such a way as that we have peace. If we were to just follow nature, we would too easily come into conflict with one another. There would always be the threat, due to it being in people’s capacities, to wrong you, and so they might.
And so we need to come together and agree to have a society. Quite Hobbesian, despite not being Aristotelian natural law, though it is a kind of natural wholeness instead.
As human beings we follow what we agreed upon, and as long as we do, we can live together in peace. Morality does not come from within, and is not inspired by essence, it is a result of coming together and agreeing upon how to do things.
Morality comes up when we form community. A shift from state of nature to a state of community.
Morality then is the awareness of what is expected from us in society.
So this morality is then both law- and right-based. We must be able to appeal to instances then. It is far more individual, in a sense.
Blaise pascal.
Developed a kind of counting machine, a calculator. Was definitely a brilliant ol’ guy.
Liked describing regularities through formulas.
Was a devote chrisitan and wanted to think a lot about God.
Makes a distinction between two kinds of esprit (common understanding about how to handle things, a way about reasoning and arguing). The kind of argument done by mathematicians, and then l’esprit de finesse. He wants to understand on the one side what is happening in the exact sciences and the humanities [DILTHEY???].
L’esprit de geometrie:
”In one, the principles are palpable but far from common usage, so much so that it is difficult to turn one’s head in that direction, though lack of habit: but if one does turn it in that direction, one sees the principles fully; and one would have to be completely wrong-minded to reason badly on principles so big that it is almost impossible for them to escape.”
So basically, coming up with a mathematical formula that cannot be denied truthfully.
Mathematical formulas take very specific elements out of reality and puts them in a kind of strict logical frame, and when one understands the elements of that frame, one cannot really disagree with it. You cannot really talk away a mathematical issue. This is the geometrical spirit. This is what happens in exact science. One takes certain elements of reality, then puts it in a formula, and then tries to see if that functions well with reality.
L’esprit de finesse:
”But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one principle leads to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all the principles and, in the next place, an accurate mind not to draw false deductions from known principles.”
By learning a language which is not yours, and using concepts that are not yours, you try to think in that original way in which that language implies, because there are other distinctions and presuppositions and groundworks at play. New horizons. If we are prepared to look at the world in different ways, we are ready to see the relativity of our daily lives.
In l’esprit de finesse, one cannot take away certain aspects from a thing and have a result, but rather one needs to try to tell the whole story in order to have an idea of what was happening. But this is difficult, because it is almost an infinite amount that one has to explain, and as such, one needs to realise that if one makes something shorter or as summarised, then that result loses quality.
The reason the industrial revolution didn’t happen in China, was because of some network of science in Europe lol, idfk what he is on about. I think the IR was kind of a bit more complicated than this but sure enough!
Findings by scientists was already communicated with craftsmen, and so inventions could develop more easily. But IR was not just about inventions my guy.
The cultivation of using language in an appropriate and accurate way was developed in aristocratic salons…… he just trailed off here. I guess he’s like tired.
Francois la Rouchefoucauld. Sad guy. Emo.
Or like madame de Sevigne. She talked about stuff idk, she helped to talk with francois.
”It is more often pride than lack of enlightenement htat makes us oppose so stubornly the generally accepted view of something. We find the front seats already taken on the correct side, and we do not want any of the back ones”.
Okay…… ”FUNNY”.
”There are some people whose faults become them well, while other people, with all their good qualities, are lacking in charm”.
SAD boy.
Jean de La bruyere was also a guy, he wrote on Greek shit. Idfk.
These kinds of poeple were doing l’esprit de finesse. They were being clever.
Jane Austen was also in this kind of tradition.
Jansenius: a guy from Leuven who created an interesting branch of christianity or something.