Quotes

Oscar Wilde, The garden of eros : [pamphlet] : [extracted from the book "Best known works of Oscar Wilde, Whitefish (Mont.), 1881

Par ce moyen, on termine aussi les anciennes disputes sur la participation des animaux à la loi naturelle ; car il est clair que, dépourvus de lumières et de liberté, ils ne peuvent reconnoître cette loi ; mais, tenant en quelque chose à notre nature par la sensibilité dont ils sont doués, on jugera qu’ils doivent aussi participer au droit naturel, et que l’homme est assujetti envers eux à quelque espèce de devoirs. Il semble en effet que si je suis obligé de ne faire aucun mal à mon semblable, c’est moins parce qu il est un être raisonnable que parce qu’il est un être sensible, qualité qui, étant commune à la bête et à l’homme, doit au moins donner à l’une le droit de n’être point maltraitée inutilement par l’autre.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, Amsterdam, 1755

I think that the fact that Popper’s philosophy survived for so long is a sociological mystery.

Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Matteo Motterlini, For and against method: including Lakatos's lectures on scientific method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend correspondence, Chicago, 1999, p. 92

En su significación sistemática e histórica, la acusación hegeliana vale como denuncia de toda actitud que proponga modificaciones ético-políticas, pues cualquier modelo o proyecto práctico presupone siempre, obviamente, que tal realidad (para modificar la cual impulsa a la acción) no se adecue a él. Precisamente por ello es un modelo de conducta transformadora y, a su manera, inevitablemente “abstracto”. La actitud contraria, el alabado “realismo” hegeliano, más allá del acierto en algunos aspectos de su crítica al moralismo, es también (cabe preguntarnos, ¿fundamentalmente?) quietismo, aceptación del estado de cosas. Solamente con la sacralización de lo vigente, de la que la dialéctica no parece ciertamente librarse, se evita la “contradicción del deber ser”. Cualquier propuesta regeneradora presupone, también es obvio, la existencia de aquello que niega, para tener ella misma sentido como ideal alternativo. Guiándonos por la letra hegeliana, diríamos que la medicina es tan “contradictoria” como la moral kantiana. En resumidas cuentas, encontramos altamente discutible este aspecto de las objeciones hegelianas a la presunta incoherencia de la teoría práctica de Kant. Consecuentemente, no podemos dejar de llamar la atención sobre el tipo de “superación” que el discurso especulativo garantiza y sobre el nexo que la “universalidad concreta” auspiciada por Hegel mantiene con la realidad efectiva. […] Común a las principales figuras del posthegelianismo será la acusación dirigida contra Hegel de haber manipulado los contenidos empíricos más dispares sin ningún tipo de justificación racional. Dicho de otro modo, se generalizará el rechazo a que pueda valer como explicación (teórica) y justificación (política) de los elementos que forman el contenido del sistema su mera presentación—por dialéctica que fuera—como “momentos” del autodespliegue de la sustancia-sujeto, una figura especulativa nacida de una hipostatización de dudosa validez gnoseológica. El rechazo entonces a la conclusión de la metafísica hegeliana, congruente con sus principios y particularmente llamativa en la filosofía del derecho.

Jorge Eugenio Dotti, Dialéctica y derecho: el proyecto ético-político hegeliano, Buenos Aires, 1983, pp. 49-51

[A]cts of moral independence help to create a climate where social pressures are less, and where the views of the powerful and the orthodox are treated with appropriate lack of reverence.

Jonathan Glover, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1975, pp. vol

A new hedonism—that is what our century wants.

Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray, New York, 1890

En la última guerra nadie puedo anhelar más que yo que fuera derrotada Alemania; nadie puedo sentir más que yo lo trágico del destino alemán[.]

Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph, Madrid, 1949

I once devised a test question which I put to many people to discover whether they were pessimists. The question was: ‘If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?’ I put the question to [Bob Trevelyan] in the presence of his wife and child, and he replied: ‘What? Destroy my library?—Never!’

Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 1872-1914, London, 1967, p. 65

We know that Homo sapiens is not the final word in primate evolution, but few have yet grasped that we are on the cusp of profound biological change, poised to transcend our current form and character on a journey to destinations of new imagination.

Gregory Stock, Redesigning humans: our inevitable genetic future, Boston, 2002, p. 1

I persist in thinking that the puzzle of ethics is starting to come together, and that few, if any, pieces are missing.

Peter Singer, A companion to ethics, Oxford, 1991, p. 545

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London, 1789, p. 4

Certain actual sleeping pills cause retrograde amnesia. It can be true that, if I take such a pill, I shall remain awake for an hour, but after my night’s sleep I shall have no memories of the second half of this hour.

I have in fact taken such pills, and found out what the results are like. Suppose that I took such a pill nearly an hour ago. The person who wakes up in my bed tomorrow will not be psychologically continuous with me as I was half an hour ago. I am now on psychological branch-line, which will end soon when I fall asleep. During this half-hour, I am psychologically continuous with myself in the past. But I am not now psychologically continuous with myself in the future. I shall never later remember what I do or think or feel during this half-hour. This means that, in some respects, my relation to myself tomorrow is like a relation to another person.

Suppose, for instance, that I have been worrying about some practical question. I now see the solution. Since it is clear what I should do, I form a firm intention. In the rest of my life, it would be enough to form this intention. But, when I am not this psychological branch-line, this is not enough. I shall not later remember what I have now decided, and I shall not wake up with the intention that I have now formed. I must therefore communicate with myself tomorrow as if I was communicating with someone else. I must write myself a letter, describing my decision, and my new intention. I must then place this letter where I am bound to notice it tomorrow.

I do not in fact have any memories of making such a decision, and writing such a letter. But I did once find such a letter underneath my razor.

Derek Parfit, Reasons and persons, Oxford, 1984, pp. 287-288

I shall die […] as I have lived, rationalist, socialist, pacifist, and humanitarian[.]

Henry Salt, quoted in George Hendrick, Henry Salt, humanitarian reformer and man of letters, Urbana, 1977

Now when this is urged against me I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject any significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance. That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, I: A Lecture on Ethics, The Philosophical Review, vol. 74, no. 1, 1965, pp. 3, p. 11

Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Patsy Rodden Ricks, and Sheila K. Dickison, De amicitia: selections, Wauconda, Ill, 2006

My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

Bertrand Russell, quoted in Jim Herrick, Against the faith: essays on deists, skeptics, and atheists, Buffalo, N.Y, 1985

That the morality of actions depends on the consequences which they tend to produce, is the doctrine of rational persons of all schools; that the good or evil of those consequences is measured solely by pleasure or pain, is all of the doctrine of the school of utility, which is peculiar to it.

John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and discussions: political, philosophical, and historical, Whitefish, MT., 1859

[Kant] said that he had to read Rousseau’s books several times, because, at a first reading, the beauty of the style prevented him from noticing the matter.

Bertrand Russell, A history of western philosophy: and its connection with political and social circumstances from the earliest times to the present day, London, 1946, p. 731

If we were asked to say, in the fewest possible words, what we conceive to be Bentham’s place among these great intellectual benefactors of humanity; what he was, and what he was not; what kind of service he did and did not render to truth; we should say—he was not a great philosopher, but a great reformer in philosophy.

John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and discussions: political, philosophical, and historical, Whitefish, MT., 1859

My eyes feel dry and hard as stones…My mind clicks on and off…Sleep is winning. My whole body argues dully that nothing, nothing life can attain is quite so desirable as sleep.

Charles A. Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis, St. Paul, 1953