Quotes

Provided we agree about the thing, ’tis needless to dispute about the terms.

David Hume, A treatise of human nature, Oxford, 1978

Deflating the exclusive question “A or B?” with the inclusive answer “Let’s have both!” is apt to look like a cop-out. [M]oving from monism to pluralism invariably raises more questions than it answers.

Tim Mulgan, Two Conceptions of Benevolence, Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 26, no. 1, 1997, pp. 78, p. 78

No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing.

John Stuart Mill, On liberty; with the subjection of women; and chapters on socialism, Cambridge, 1989

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Stop the Madness, Toronto Globe and Mail, 2009, p. 38

Libertarians often equate capitalism with the absence of restrictions on freedom. Anthony Flew, for example, defines libertarianism as ‘opposed to any social and legal constraints on individual freedom’. He contrasts this with liberal egalitarians and socialists who favour government restrictions on the free market. Flew thus identifies capitalism with the absence of restrictions on freedom. Many of those who favour constraining the market agree that they are thereby restricting liberty. Their endorsement of welfare-state capitalism is said to be a compromise between freedom and equality, where freedom is understood as the free market, and equality as welfare-state restrictions on the market. This equation of capitalism and freedom is part of the everyday picture of the political landscape.

Does the free market involve more freedom? It depends on how we define freedom. Flew seems to be assuming a neutral definition of freedom. By eliminating welfare-state redistribution, the free market eliminates some legal constraints on the disposal of one’s resources, and thereby creates some neutral freedoms. For example, if government funds a welfare programme by an 80-per-cent tax on inheritance and capital gains, then it prevents people from giving their property to others. Flew does not tell us how much neutral freedom would be gained by removing this tax, but it clearly would allow someone to act in a way they otherwise could not. This expansion of neutral freedom is the most obvious sense in which capitalism increases freedom, but many of these neutral freedoms will also be valuable purposive freedoms, for there are important reasons why people might give their property to others. So capitalism does provide certain neutral and purposive freedoms unavailable under the welfare state.

But we need to be more specific about this increased liberty. Every claim about freedom, to be meaningful, must have a triadic structure-it must be of the form ‘x is free from y to do z’, where x I specifies the agent, y specifies the preventing conditions, and z specifies the action. Every freedom claim must have these three elements: it must specify who is free to do what from what obstacle. Flew has told us the last two elements––æhis claim concerns the freedom to dispose of property without legal constraint. But he has not told us the first-i.e. who has this freedom? As soon as we ask that question, Flew’s equation of capitalism with freedom is undermined. For it is the owners of the resource who are made free to dispose of it, while non-owners are deprived of that freedom. Suppose that a large estate you would have inherited (in the absence of an inheritance tax) now becomes a public park, or a low-income housing project (as a result of the tax). The inheritance tax does not eliminate the freedom to use the property, rather it redistributes that freedom. If you inherit the estate, then you are free to dispose of it as you see fit, but if I use your backyard for my picnic or garden without your permission, then I am breaking the law, and the government will intervene and coercively deprive me of the freedom to continue. On the other hand, my freedom to use and enjoy the property is increased when the welfare state taxes your inheritance to provide me with affordable housing, or a public park. So the free market legally restrains my freedom, while the welfare state increases it. Again, this is most obvious on a neutral definition of freedom, but many of the neutral freedoms I gain from the inheritance tax are also important purposive ones.

Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, Oxford, 1990, pp. 146-147

When Hume’s reflections confronted him with the baselessness of all human reasoning and belief, he found it most fortunate that “nature herself” ensures that he would not long linger in such dark skepticism: “I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, so strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

When Parfit’s reflections led him to a reductionist view of personal identity, he found it /un/fortunate that one cannot long maintain this view of the world, which removes the glass wall between oneself and others and makes one care less about one’s own death. Focusing on his arguments, one can only briefly stun one’s natural concern for one’s own future by reconceiving oneself in accordance with the reductionist view.

Our world is arranged to keep us far away from massive and severe poverty and surrounds us with affluent, civilized people for whom the poor abroad are a remote good cause alongside the spotted owl. In such a world, the thought that we are involved in a monumental crime against these people, that we must fight to stop their dying and suffering, will appear so cold, so strained, and ridiculous, that we cannot find it in our heart to reflect on it any farther. That we are naturally myopic and conformist enough to be easily reconciled to the hunger abroad may be fortunate for us, who can “recognize ourselves,” can lead worthwhile and fulfilling lives without much thought about the origins of our affluence. But it is quite unfortunate for the global poor, whose best hope may be our moral reflection.

Thomas W. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms, Cambridge, 2002, p. 26

A distinction is sometimes drawn between ‘man-made’ famines and famines caused by nature. […] Blaming nature can, of course, be very consoling and comforting. It can be of great use especially to those in positions of power and responsibility. Comfortable inaction is, however, typically purchased at a very heavy price—a price that is paid by others, often with their lives.

Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and public action, Oxford [England] : New York, 1989, pp. 46-47

It is […] nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: philosopher-scientist, La Salle, Ill, 1949, p. 17

Amoralits are sceptics about the claims of morality. They do not have to be ruthlessly selfish—they may have generous impulses and care about other people—but they are sceptical about claims that they ought to do things for others. An amoralist says about ‘ought’ what Oscar Wilde said about ‘patriotism’: it is not one of my words. The generous, caring amoralist is in practice not much of a problem. It is the ruthlessly selfish amoralist who arouses the hope that amoralism can be refuted.

Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A moral history of the twentieth century, New Haven, 2001, p. 18

In order to lessen the number of people who’ll die very prematurely, you needn’t cause anyone any serious loss, and you certainly needn’t cause anybody to lose her life. Indeed, all you need do is send money to UNICEF, or to OXFAM, or, for that matter, to CARE, whose address you can also know:

CARE 151 Ellis Street, N.E. Atlanta, GA 30303

From this chapter’s first paragraph, most get what, for the bulk of our adult lives, is the most important moral message we need.

Peter Unger, Living high and letting die: Our illusion of innocence, New York, 1996, p. 84

For one thing, France does not have a civil-libertarian tradition of the Anglo-Saxon variety. For another thing, there simply is a totalitarian strain among large sements of the French intelligentisa. Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism, for example, were much more viable and significant doctrines among the French than in England or the United States. What’s called the Left, especially in France, has a large segment that is deeply authoritarian.

Carl Oglesby, Boston Magazine, 1981, p. 130

It is by no means inconceivable that the special character of our art and our personal relationships depends upon the cognitive biases and limits that prevent us handling philosophical problems, so that philosophical aptitude would deprive our lives of much of their point. Philosophy might require even more self-sacrifice than has traditionally been conceded.

Colin McGinn, Problems in philosophy: the limits of inquiry, Oxford, 1993, p. 156

[I]f ultimate values are incompatible, a perfect world in which all ultimate values—goodness, truth, justice, liberty, self-realization, equality, mercy, beauty—are combined cannot be conceived, let alone exist.

Isaiah Berlin, A Philosophical Self-Portrait, in Thomas Mautner (ed.) The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, London, 1996, p. 68

One way for the utilitarian to deal with the Inquisitor is not to argue with him at all. You don’t argue with the sharks; you just put up nets to keep them away from the beaches. Likewise the Inquisitor, or any other utilitarian with dangerously wrong opinions about how to maximize utility, is simply a danger to be fended off. You organize and fight. You see to it that he cannot succeed in his plan to do harm in order—as he thinks and you do not—to maximize utility.

A second way is to fight first and argue afterward. When you fight, you change the circumstances that afford the premises of a utilitarian argument. First you win the fight, then you win the argument. If you can make sure that the Inquisitor will fail in his effort to suppress heresy, you give him a reason to stop trying. Though he thinks that successful persecution maximizes utility, he will certainly agree that failed attempts are nothing but useless harm.

David Lewis, Mill and milquetoast, Australasian journal of philosophy, vol. 67, no. 2, 1989, pp. 152–171, p. 159

Dualidad valorativa es personalidad dividida.

Revista latinoamericana de filosofía, 1999, p. 235

He that sees a fire, may, if he doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel it too; and be convinced, by putting his hand in it. Which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phantom, unless that the pain be a fancy too: which yet he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again.

John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding, Oxford, 1975, p. 11

As could be shown at much greater length, there is no truth in the notion of our governments and their foreign ministers, diplomats, and negotiators being motivated by humanitarian concerns that international law as it stands obliges them to suppress. […]

There are no humanitarian heroes among those who exercise power in our names. This is why we are treated to a purely hypothetical example. This hypothetical appeals irresistibly to the good sense of any person whose humanity has not been thoroughly corrupted. Yes of course, we exclaim, the law (and much else) may and must be set aside to save 800,000 people from being hacked to death merely because they are Tutsis or want to live in peace with them. But when the lesson will be accepted and the plain meaning of the Charter will be viewed as unworthy of defense, then it is not the good sense of Thomas Franck and us citizens that will fill the vacuum. Rather, outcomes will then be determined by the “good sense” of those whose humanity has been corrupted through their ascent to national office, through their power, and through the adversarial character of their role: by the good sense of people like Clinton, Albright, and Kofi Annan, who enabled the genocide in Rwanda, by the good sense of people like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, who are more interested in liberating oil fields abroad than human beings. To be sure, the overt or covert violence unleashed by such politicians—regularly rationalized as humanitarian—sometimes happens to prevent more harm than it produces. But the overall record over the last 60 years is not encouraging.

Terry Nardin et al. (ed.), Humanitarian intervention, New York, 2006, p. 166

Philosophy should provide edification and concern, but it too often encourages escape through rationalization.

Dale Jamieson (ed.), Singer and his critics, Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass, 1999, p. 78

The eradication of malaria would offer us enhanced travel opportunities in tropical regions. It would greatly improve the economic performance in many (especially African) countries which, through trade, would have direct and indirect positive economic effects on ourselves. And it would gain us a great deal of good will for poor populations who are currently, quite understandably, suspecting our humanitarian concerns to be highly selective: We are willing to spend billions to protect disaffected Kosovars and Iraqis from the brutalities of Milosovic and Saddam Hussein, but ignore very much larger numbers of human beings who are exterminated by genocide (Rwanda) or starvation and could be saved at very much lower cost.

Thomas W. Pogge, Testing our drugs on the poor abroad, in Jennifer S. Hawkins and Ezekiel J. Emanuel (eds.) Exploitation and Developing Countries: The Ethics of Clinical Research, Princeton, 2008, pp. 105–141

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

Bertrand Russell, Sceptical essays, London ; New York, 1928