Author Archives: Pablo Stafforini

Louis Pascal

Thus we have, I think, a rather complete refutation of those strange people who think life is nice. In the first place, life is clearly not nice for that substantial proportion of mankind (soon to be a majority) who must live from day to day from hand to mouth for ever on the verge or over the verge of starvation. Ask some of the thousands who starve each day how much they enjoy the beautiful birds and flowers and trees. Ask them their opinion of God’s love and His tender mercy. Or if perchance you don’t believe in God, then ask them their opinion of the love and tender mercy of their fellow human beings, the rich gods across the sea who couldn’t care less about their sufferings -at any rate not enough to go out of their way to help them. Ask them those questions. They count too.

Louis Pascal, ‘Judgment Day’, in Peter Singer (ed.), Applied Ethics, Oxford, 1986, pp. 113-114

Lori Gruen and Peter Singer

Experimental psychology raises, in an especially acute form, a central contradiction of much animal experimentation. For if the monkeys Harlow used do not crave affection like human infants, and if they do not experience loneliness, terror and despair like human infants, what is the point of the experiments? But if the monkeys do crave affection, and do feel loneliness, terror and despair in the way that humans do, how can the experiments possibly justified?

Lori Gruen and Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A Graphic Guide, London, 1987, p. 81

René Descartes

Comme on voit aussi que presque jamais il n’est arrivé qu’aucun de leurs sectateurs les ait surpassés; et je m’assure que les plus passionnés de ceux qui suivent maintenant Aristote se croiraient hereux s’ils avaient autant de connaissance de la nature qu’il en a eu, encore même que ce fût à condition qu’ils n’en auraient jamais davantage. Ils sont comme la lierre, qui ne tend point à monter plus haut que les arbres qui le soutiennent, et même souvent qui redescend après qu’il est parvenu jusqu’à leur faît.

René Descartes, Discours de la méthode, Leyden, 1637, chap. 6

José Gallegos Rocafull

La sociedad de nuestros días conoce tan bien como la de Séneca a esos hombres fofos, vacíos por dentro, hueros de ideas, incapaces de esfuerzo, que viven de la obra colectiva, repitiendo como un eco palabras o consignas, que a veces ni entienden ni tratan de hacer suyas. Pululan por todas partes, tratan de imponer su voluntad, parece que dirigen a los demás y en realidad no son más que juguetes del destino, que los derriba tan arbitrariamente como los encontró y deja ver, cuando ya están humillados y hechos polvo, que su pretendida grandeza no era más que una vana apariencia sin consistencia y sin realidad.

José Gallegos Rocafull, ‘Introducción’, in Lucio Anneo Séneca, Cartas morales, México, 1951, vol. 1, pp. xi-xii

Mumon

If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow;
If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.
Such a body has no place to rest…
Let another one continue this poem.

Mumon, ‘The Gateless Gate’, in Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki (eds.), Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Boston, 1994, pp. 194-195

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wenn diese Arbeit einen Wert hat, so besteht er in Zweierlei. Erstens darin, dass in ihr Gedanken ausgedrückt sind, und dieser Wert wird umso grösser sein, je besser die Gedanken ausgedrückt sind. Je mehr der Nagel auf den Kopf getroffen ist. – Hier bin ich mir bewusst, weit hinter dem Möglichen zurückgeblieben zu sein. Einfach darum, weil meine Kraft zur Bewältigung der Aufgabe zu gering ist. – Mögen andere kommen und es besser machen.

Dagegen scheint mir die Warheit der hier mitgeteilten Gedanken unantasbar ist un definitiv. Ich bin also der Meinung, die Probleme im Wesentlichen endgültig gelöst zu haben. Und wenn ich mich hierin nicht irre, so besteht nun der Wert dieser Arbeit zeitens darin, dass sie zeigt, wie wening damit getan ist, dass die Probleme gelöst sind.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, London, 1922, Vorwort

Daniel Dennett

Do we really think what we are currently confronted with is worth protecting with some creative obscurantism? Do we think, for instance, that vast resources should be set aside to preserve the imaginary prospects of a renewed mental life for deeply comatose people, while there are no resources to spare to enhance the desperate, but far from imaginary, expectations of the poor? Myths about the sanctity of life, or of consciousness, cut both ways. They may be useful in erecting barriers (against euthanasia, against capital punishment, against abortion, against eating meat) to impress the unimaginative, but at the price of offensive hypocrisy or ridiculous self-deception among the more enlightened.

Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, Boston, 1991, p. 454

David DeGrazia

When a Benjamin Franklin or a Jeremy Bentham suggested that we look at animals in a radically different way, the suggestion was probably greeted not with a refutation but with a laugh or sneer. Until animals are taken seriously enough that this possibility is clearly in mind, intelligent discussion of the reasons for and against equal consideration is impossible.

David DeGrazia, Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status, Cambridge, 1996, p. 49

Hugo Grotius

Nimirum leges, ut ait Cicero, iniqua tollunt quatenus teneri manu possunt, philosophi quatenus ratione et intelligentia. Hi vero qui legibus civilibus subiecti non sunt, id sequi debent quod aequum esse ipsis ratio recta dictat.

Hugo Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis, Paris, 1625, bk. 2, chap. 12, sect. 12

Alan Ryan

Mill held […] that persecution was usually successful if it was tried for a reasonable length of time, and that it only failed where the numbers of the persecuted were so great that the policy could not be kept up for long. The Roman persecutors of Christianity might easily have succeeded in stamping out that faith altogether—a claim to which some reviewers took exception on the grounds that it suggested that God might have chosen to desert his revelation[.]

Alan Ryan, J. S. Mill, London, 1974, p. 137

John Harris

There is always a danger when labels are attached to philosophical positions for people to assume that if they reject a particular school of philosophy in general, or adhere to a different philosophical tradition or approach, they can safely ignore or reject arguments from another school of philosophy.

John Harris, Clones, Genes, and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution, Oxford, 1998, pp. 5-6

J. J. C. Smart

[I]f it is rational for me to choose the pain of a visit to the dentist in order to prevent the pain of a toothache, why is it not rational of me to choose a pain of Jones, similar to that of my visit to the dentist, if that is the only way in which I can prevent a pain, equal to that of my toothache, for Robinson?

J. J. C. Smart, ‘An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics’, in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, p. 26

Ray Carney

We live in a culture of mass-production and one of the products we manufacture the best is synthetic emotions and experiences. The Hollywood studios are brilliant at mass-producing stock feelings. They have perfected the art of canning them.

Ray Carney, ‘A Chilly View of Hollywood’, MovieMaker, vol. 13 (June, 1995)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

And now I must say that if I contemplate what Ethics really would have to be if there were such a science, this result seems to me quite obvious. It seems to me obvious that nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing. That we cannot write a scientific book, the subject matter of which could be intrinsically sublime and above all other subject matters. I can only describe my feeling by the metaphor, that, if a man could write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all the other books in the world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘A Lecture on Ethics’, Philosophical Review, vol. 74, no. 1 (January, 1965), p. 7

Peter Singer

She communicates in sign language, using a vocabulary of over 1000 words. She also understands spoken English, and often carries on ‘bilingual’ conversations, responding in sign to questions asked in English. She is learning the letters of the alphabet, and can read some printed words, including her own name. She has achieved scores between 85 and 95 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.

She demonstrates a clear self-awareness by engaging in self-directed behaviours in front of a mirror, such as making faces or examining her teeth, and by her appropriate use of self-descriptive language. She lies to avoid the consequences of her own misbehaviour, and anticipates others’ responses to her actions She engages in imaginary play, both alone and with others. She has produced paintings and drawings which are representational. She remembers and can talk about past events in her life. She understands and has used appropriately time-related words like ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘later’, and ‘yesterday’.
She laughs at her own jokes and those of others. She cries when hurt or left alone, screams when frightened or angered. She talks about her feelings, using words like ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘afraid’, ‘enjoy’, ‘eager’, ‘frustrate’, ‘made’ and, quite frequently, ‘love’. She grieves for those she has lost—a favourite cat who has died, a friend who has gone away. She can talk about what happens when one dies, but she becomes fidgety and uncomfortable when asked to discuss her own death or the death of her companions. She displays a wonderful gentleness with kittens and other small animals. She has even expresses empathy for others seen only in pictures.

Many people react with scepticism to such descriptions of a non human animal, but the abilities of the gorilla Koko described here are broadly similar to those reported quite independently by observers of other great apes, including chimpanzees and orang-utans.

Peter Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, New York, 1994, pp. 181-182

Paul Feyerabend

You [Lakatos] say that Sir K just messed up Hume’s problem. This is precisely what Schrödinger said, and I was there when he said it. It is a very interesting story. Karl wanted to dedicate the English edition of the Logic of Sci. etc. to Schrödinger. He had never given the book to Schrödinger to read and wanted to know, desperately, what he thought of it. Karl was sitting at the Böglerhof, Schrödinger was at another restaurant in Alpbach, in a very bad temper: “This Popper! There he gives me this confused book of his and wants me to consent to have my name on the first page. He says he does something about Hume’s problem – but he doesn’t, he just talks, and talks, and talks, and Hume’s problem is still unsolved”. So I tried to explain to him the difference between the problem of demarcation and the problem of induction. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I know, he solves the one BUT HE DOESN’T SOLVE THE OTHER and that is just what Hume said, that it couldn’t be solved…” etc. etc

Paul Feyerabend, Letter to Imre Lakatos, January 11, 1974, in Matteo Motterlini (ed.), For and Against Method: Including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence, Chicago, 1999, p. 353

Jorge Luis Borges

Una tarde oí pasos trabajosos y luego un golpe. Abrí y entró un desconocido. Era un hombre alto y viejo, envuelto en una manta raída. Le cruzaba la cara una cicatriz. Los años parecían haberle dado más autoridad que flaqueza, pero noté que le costaba andar sin el apoyo del bastón. Cambiamos unas palabras que no recuerdo. Al fin dijo: […]

— Ando por los caminos del destierro pero aún soy el rey porque tengo el disco. ¿Quieres verlo? […] Es el disco de Odín. Tiene un solo lado. En la tierra no hay otra cosa que tenga un solo lado. Mientras esté en mi mano seré el rey.

— ¿Es de oro? — le dije.

— No sé. Es el disco de Odín y tiene un solo lado.

Jorge Luis Borges, ‘El disco’, in Obras completas, Buenos Aires, 1989, vol. 3, pp. 66-67

Bertrand Russell

Carlyle remarked: “The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools.” Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark.

Bertrand Russell, ‘How to Become a Man of Genius’, Hearst Newspaper, 1932