A good man, a good rope, and a good Christmas tree are transposed when the man is hanged by the rope on the Christmas tree. As a transposition, this is axiologically bad; but it is an axiologically good bad, that is, a good transposition, namely, a good hanging. On the other hand, if a man pulls the Christmas tree behind him on a rope we have a composition of values, of the same elements, and the complex value "man-pulling-Christmas-tree" or "Christmas-tree-puller," the concept of which contains all three connotations in question. The actual person fulfilling this concept is "a good Christmas-tree-puller."
--Robert S. Hartman
And this pressure of ready-made pastimes and amusements affects another source of the joy still apparent in pretechnical societies - the element of spontaneity, of a direct, fresh response to living and being. This spontaneity is not easy to define. In fact, none of the phenomena of happiness lends itself too well to our typically modern dissecting and analyzing intelligence. There is a factor in it of rejoicing in the sheer existence of some object - a bird, a flower, a song a sword. But there is an element, too, of enhancing the object by communicating to it the power of life of the observer's own personality. The Africans have a name for a man's power to enhance, in beauty, force and emotion, the given facts of being. They call it nommo. And men with this gift - poets, singers, seers, saints - are said to have baraka, the power of enhancement, of giving and having life and having it more abundantly. For societies in which this is a high and valued endowment, it is virtually impossible to conceive of such modern phrases as "to kill time" or "the problem of leisure."
...
But, in the larger sense of human existence needing, for joy and sanity, a sense of purpose and direction, an awe and wonder, which, as Einstain reminded us, is the very source of inquiry and hende of science - in this sense, our technical society, so wrapped up in means and manipulation, too often fails to give us direction and dedication, without which we can be rich and healthy and strong, yet bored and joyless as well.
--Barbara Ward (1963)
Anything which under one concept is good because it fulfills the concept may under another concept be bad because it does not fulfill that concept. Thus, as Spinoza observed, a good ruin is a bad house, and a good house is a bad ruin. It is the art of the optimist always to find that concept in terms of which the thing appears good, and that of the pessimist always to find that concept in terms of which the thing appears bad. The thing is always the same; optimism and pessimism appear in the art of naming and hence understanding it.
...
A thing is good if it has all the properties of its concept. The proper concept of the world must contain all the natural properties there are, have been, or will be. The world is that which has all these properties and thus always fulfills its concept. Therefore it is good. If a concept of the world is posited that does no contain all the properties there are, then it is not the concept of the world, and wrong thinking results, in the light of which the world is bad because it does not fulfill the concept posited. The goodness of the world is, of course, not ethical but axiological goodness. Although the world as such is good, the things in it may, indeed must be, both good and bad; for as we have seen anything that is good under one concept may be bad under another. Badness thus is the transposition of concepts or the incompatibility of things which in themselves are good. The world, thus, axiologically good as it is, contains the maximum variety of good and bad things (cf. Leibniz's pre-established harmony).
--Robert S. Hartman
Why ought I to be good?
Is it better to be good than bad?
Is it conceivable that it would be better to be bad than good?
Ought the good to be?
Ought what is to be good?
Is the best better than the good?
If the good out to be, what about the best?
Is the perfect better than the good?
Is the perfect better than the best?
Ought what is to be perfect?
If the perfect ought to be, ought the good not to be?
Is the best good enough?
Is the best perfect?
Is the perfect worse rather then better than the good?
Is there any good at all?
Is all good relative?
What is the value of value?
What is the value of fact?
Is value?
--Robert S. Hartman
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.
--Daniel Goleman
Some students begin by forming an opinion ... and it is not till afterwards that they begin to read the texts. They run a great risk of not understanding them at all, or of understanding them wrongly. What happens is that a kind of tacit contest goes on between the text and the preconceived opinions of the reader; the mind refuses to grasp what is contrary to its idea, and the issue of the contest commonly is, not that the mind surrenders to the evidence of the text but that the text yields, bends, and accommodates itself to the preconceived opinion.
--Fustel de Coulanges
We must mobilize our compassion and the intrinsic moral goodness of America to break the power chain of divine sovereignties and permit the human state to succeed the military state. For it is the moral goodness of America that makes this country great, the goodness that recognizes the infinite intrinsic value of the human person. We need to translate this moral goodness into international relations. We need to export it, for, in the long run, it -- rather our wealth, our standard of living, and our named power -- is what attracts the rest of the world to America. I have no doubt that the Soviet Union fears our goodness much more than our badness.
--Robert S. Hartman (1963)
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
--Steve Jobs
Recent Comments