Monthly Archives: January 2003

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

Bertrand Russell

It appeared to me obvious that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action, and I discovered to my surprise that there were those who thought otherwise. Belief in happiness, I found, was called Utilitarianism, and was merely one among a number of ethical theories. I adhered to it after this discovery, and was rash enough to tell my grandmother that I was a utilitarian. She covered me with ridicule, and ever after submitted ethical conundrums to me, telling me to solve them on utilitarian principles. I perceived that she had no good grounds for rejecting utilitarianism, and that her opposition to it was not intellectually respectable.

Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872-1914, London, 1967, pp. 44-45