Quotes
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
[L]os anarquistas no van precisamente contra una clase social, ni contra un sistema económico, ni proceden ellos exclusivamente de una determinada clase social sino de todas. Van contra un principio—el principio de autoridad—contra la organización social que es autoritaria en todos los órdenes de la vida desde el político hasta el moral y desde el intelectual hasta el económico, y contra todas las clases sociales que se opongan a la libertad, a la anarquía.
Eduardo Gilimón, La Anarquía, La Protesta, 1908
[T]he plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner [of the world] he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
Thomas Henry Huxley, On the Physical Basis of Life, Fortnightly Review, vol. 5, no. 5, 1869, p. 43
[T]he appeal to reason is implicitly authorized by the [subjectivist] challenge itself, so this is really a way of showing that the challenge is unintelligible. The charge of begging the question implies that there is an alternative—namely, to examine the reasons for and against the claim being challenged while suspending judgment about it. For the case of reasoning itself, however, no such alternative is available, since any considerations against the objective validity of a type of reasoning are inevitably attempts to offer reasons against it, and these must be rationally assessed. The use of reason in the response is not a gratuitous importation by the defender: It is demanded by the character of the objections offered by the challenger.
Thomas Nagel, The last word, New York, 1997, p. 24
Nun aber kann man sich zwar willkürlich appliciren auf Lesen und Lernen; auf das Denken hingegen eigentlich nicht. Dieses nämlich muß, wie das Feuer durch einen Luftzug, angefacht und unterhalten werden durch irgend ein Interesse am Gegenstande desselben[.]
Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und paralipomena: Kleine philosophische Schriften, Leipzig, 1874
[W]hen defenders of capitalism frequently compare socialist East with the industrialized West, they choose the richest and most liberal capitalist countries for the comparison. This is analogous to defending feudalism by drawing attention to the happy condition of the nobility, while forgetting that their wealth and leisure are the obverse of the poverty of their serfs. So, similarly, the rich capitalist countries are paraded as exemplars of a wholesome social order. However, when the West is acknowledged to be far from self-sufficient and is seen to be part of an international economic system which includes the exploitation of the Third World as a basis for the high standard of living experienced in the developed nations, or at the very least is seen to induce underdevelopment in other parts of the, then it is this internationally exploitative system as a whole which must be compared with the socialist countries. And in this comparison capitalism (which must include Third World misery) dose not fare so well.
Alan Carter, Marx: a radical critique, Brighton, 1988, p. 4
All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.
John Rawls, A theory of justice, Cambridge, MA, 1971, p. 30
[I]n my specially isolated cell I was, to a very considerable extent, undisturbed, especially in the first five months after the sentence when I was in the dark and therefore necessarily inactive physically. In the dark there is little one can do except thjink, and the absence of anything to divert one’s thoughts gives them an intensity seldom experienced in normal conditions.
Edith Bone, Seven Years Solitary, London, 1957, p. 103
“No republicanos”: regímenes que reglaron el juego sucio como regla del juego—revistieron peculado de peculio—, normalizaron la anomia—invistieron la ley de la fuerza de fuerza de ley—y travistieron inseguridad jurídica (léase en clave económica: incertidumbre) en jurisprudencia cierta—tradujeron la letra de la ley en letra muerta—; repúblicas sin republicanismo; civilidad sin civismo; barbarie sin civilización; sociedad civil con Sociedades del Estado; poder estatal (poder gubernamental potenciado con poder corporativo, e impotente ante él) sin contrapoder societal; patriarcalismo sin Padres de la Patria; bonapartismo parasitario; / Nomenklatura/ con nomenclatura hispana (en pésimo español).
Durante años de oprobio y bobería, los métodos de la propaganda comercial y de la litérature pour concierges fueron aplicados al gobierno de la república. Hubo así dos historias: una, de índole criminal, hecha de cárceles, torturas, prostituciones, robos, muertes e incendios; otra, de carácter escénico, hecha de necedades y fábulas para consumo de patanes. […] Ya Coleridge habló de la willing suspension of disbelief (voluntaria suspensión de la incredulidad) que constituye la fe poética; ya Samuel Johnson observó en defensa de Shakespeare que los espectadores de una tragedia no creen que están en Alejandría durante el primer acto y en Roma durante el segundo pero condescienden al agrado de una ficción. Parejamente, las mentiras de la dictadura no eran creídas o descreídas; pertenecían a un plano intermedio y su propósito era encubrir o justificar sórdidas o atroces realidades.
Jorge Luis Borges, L'illusion comique, Sur, no. 237, 1955, pp. 9–10, pp. 9-10
On the phenomenal concept, mind is characterized by the way it feels; on the psychological concept, mind is characterized by what it does. There should be no question of competition between these two notions of mind. Neither of them is the correct analysis of mind. They cover different phenomena, both of which are quite real.
David J. Chalmers, The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory, Oxford, 1996, p. 11
[L]a filosofía moral tiene marcada relevancia moral: en la medida en que ella se proponga esclarecer las reglas constitutivas de una institución que satisface ciertas funciones sociales sumamente valiosas, se fortalecerá la operatividad y eficacia de esa institución, puesto que los que pariticipan en ella (todos nosotros cuando discurrimos acerca de la justificación de una acción o institución) tendrán una visión más perspicua del “juego” que practican y lo harán mejor. Esto no sirve, obviamente, para justificar sin circularidad la moral y la filosofía moral, pero, como nuestra conciencia no tiene demasiados escrúpulos lógicos, sirve al menos para que ella esté tranquila mientras nosotros nos dedicamos a esta acividad en vez de encarar alguna otra obra más obviamente benéfica.
Carlos Santiago Nino, El constructivismo ético, Madrid, 1989, p. 71
A nadie se le puede aconsejar que compre libros. Los que los particulares adquieren, después de leídos, forman parte de un mueble de lujo que se llama Biblioteca. Este es un sepulcro familiar. Casi siempre pasa a otra generación como un legado de familia. Muy cultos serían los vecinos de una pequeña ciudad, si diez o cincuenta de ellos tuviesen el mismo libro, cuya lectura serviría acaso para una decena de sus allegados. Es éste un sistema antieconómico y estéril. Las Bibliotecas Populares remedian el mal de la limitada circulación de los libros y de su estagnación en estantes. Una aldea, una villa, una ciudad, se convierte por aquella institución en un individuo que posee o puede poseer todos los libros; en una familia dueña de un depósito de conocimientos. Un ejemplar, acaso tres o cuatro, satisfacen la curiosidad de todos sucesivamente, proveyendo de novedades todos los días a los más curiosos o adelantados, y reservando para los rezagados el mismo nutrimiento que ya sirvió, sin deterioro, a los que le precedieron.
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Páginas selectas de Sarmiento sobre bibliotecas populares, Buenos Aires, 1939, p. 131
[A] critique of reason, democracy and humanism that originated on the German Right during the 1920s was internalized by the French Left.
Richard Wolin, The seduction of unreason: the intellectual romance with fascism: from Nietzsche to postmodernism, Princeton, N.J, 2004, p. 247
At a conference a group of philosophers were playing guitars and singing folk songs after the formal sessions were over. They asked Kripke to join in and he replied “If anyone else did, that would be the end of it, but if I do, it will be just another Kripke anecdote.” (This is what we philosophers call technically a “meta anecdote.”)
Colin McGinn, The making of a philosopher: my journey through twentieth-century philosophy, New York, NY, 2002, p. 67
Like playing the violin or the piano, thinking needs everyday practice[.]
Charlie Chaplin, My autobiography, New York, N.Y., U.S.A, 1964, p. 251