Kommt es denn darauf an, die Anschauung über Gott, Welt und Versöhnung zu bekommen, bei der man sich am bequemsten befindet, ist nicht viel mehr für den wahren Forscher das Resultat seiner Forschung geradezu etwas Gleichgültiges? Suchen wir denn bei unserem Forschen Ruhe, Friede, Glück? Nein, nur die Wahrheit, und wäre sie höchst abschreckend und häßlich.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Brief an Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 11. Juni 1865
Natural law ethicists are kept constantly squirming between the underlying idea that what is natural is good, and the need to make some ethical distinctions between different forms of behavior that are, in biological terms, natural to human beings. This wasn’t an insoluble problem for Aristotle, who believed that everything in the universe exists for a purpose, and has a nature conducive to that purpose. Just as the purpose of a knife is to cut, and so a good knife is a sharp one, so Aristotle seems to have thought that human beings exist for a purpose, and their nature accords with their purpose. But knives have creators, and, unless we assume a divine creation, human beings do not. For the substantial proportion of natural law theorists who work within the Roman Catholic tradition, the assumption of a divine creator poses no problem. But to the others, and indeed to anyone who has accepts a modern scientific view of our origins, the problem is insoluble, for evolutionary theory breaks the link between what is natural and what is good. Nature, understood in evolutionary terms, carries no moral value.
Peter Singer, ‘A Reply to Martha Nussbaum’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 2002
[Wilbur Glenn] Voliva was a paunchy, baldish, grim-faced fellow who wore a rumpled frock coat and enormous whit cuffs. Throughout his life he was profoundly convinced that the earth is shaped like a flapjack, with the North Pole in the center and the South Pole distributed around the circumference. For many years, he offered $5,000 to anyone who could prove to him the earth is spherical, and in fact made several trips around the world lecturing on the subject. In his mind, of course, he had not circumnavigated a globe; he had merely traced a circle on a flat surface.
Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, New York, 1957, p. 14
From a purely psychological point of view, the introduction of new hypotheses and of new terms would appear justified if it led to a system free of contradictions, and to predictions verifiable by experiment. But, to take the latter test first, analysts of the orthodox Freudian, Jungian, and Adlerian schools all achieve some therapeutical results which seem to confirm prediction by experiment, though the theories on which the predictions are based are sometimes diametrically opposed to each other. The reason for this, and for the indecisive nature of the purely psychological approach in general, is the metaphorical character of psychological terms like “repression,” “censor,” super-ego,” inferiority complex,” and so forth, and the tautologies to which their manipulation often leads.
Arthur Koestler, Insight and Outlook: An Inquiry into the Common Foundations of Science, Art, and Social Ethics, 1949, New York, p. ix
We shouldn’t be afraid of difficult films, we shouldn’t be afraid not to be entertained. The viewer pays a high price for a film. And not in money. Viewers spend their time, a piece of their lives—an hour and a half to two hours. A bad film, an aggressive film, takes several centuries of life from humanity.
Aleksandr Sokurov, Interview with Edward Guthman, The San Francisco Chronicle, February 2, 2003
After-the-fact interpretation is appropriate for some historical and literary scholars, which helps explain Freud’s lingering influence on literary criticism. But in science as in horse racing, bets must be placed before the race is run.
David Myers, Intuition: Its Powers and Perils, New Haven, 2002, p. 23
Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. “The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat,” Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler’s seizure of power. “You always wore it the ‘right’ way around.” If apostasy weren’t conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that’s never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power’s magnetic field, rarely away.
Norman Finkelstein, ‘Fraternally Yours, Chris’
Es común que se diga […] que los argentinos no desaprobamos socialmente [la evasión impositiva], y me parece que ello ocurre en parte porque no se percibe el carácter socialmente dañoso que ella tiene. La respuesta de muchos es que “no vale la pena pagar impuestos, porque ellos solo sirven para que se los roben los funcionarios, o para pagar la ineficiencia estatal”. Es obvio que esta respuesta carece de base racional: por más corrupción que haya o por más ineficiencia que afecte a la administración pública, ella solo puede incidir en una proporción marginal en el destino de los impuestos. Que una parte importante de las contribuciones tienen un destino de bien público lo atestigua la existencia en el ámbito público de escuelas, universidades, bibliotecas, fuerzas de seguridad y de defensa, calles y rutas, parques, etcétera. Parece que la desconfianza al Estado que se da típicamente en nuestro país obnubilara la relación causal entre las contribuciones de los ciudadanos y los servicios públicos que los mismos ciudadanos utilizan. Es como si aquellas contribuciones las absorbiera el Estado para beneficio de los funcionarios, y los servicios se financiaran con maná del cielo. Es muy difícil encontrar a alguien que perciba en la evasión impositiva de otro un daño directo para sus intereses.
Carlos Santiago Nino, Un país al margen de la ley: estudio de la anomia como componente del subdesarrollo argentino, Buenos Aires, 1992, pp. 188-189
When we consider the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology.
Noam Chomsky, ‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals’, The New York Review of Books, vol. 8, no. 3 (February 23, 1967)
[W]e live in an age when only unnecessary things are absolutely necessary to us.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, 1891
La concepción más divulgada en la actualidad presenta la vida política como una lucha entre facciones contrarias, en la que únicamente hay lugar para los juegos estratégicos y los cálculos en torno a pérdidas y ganancias. […] A ello se ha sumado en la última década una presión incontenible del capital financiero internacional que por la vía de la ampliación o de la restricción del crédito público somete a los poderes elegidos democráticamente a un Diktat, tanto más efectivo cuanto más impersonal y neutro sea su maquillaje. De este modo se ha producido una extraordinaria confluencia de tradiciones provenientes de polos opuestos en el comienzo del siglo XX, que hoy festejan su connubio en un clima de fervor casi dionisiaco. En efecto, tanto el autoritarismo de origen nietzscheano, el postmarxismo y el postestructuralismo, por un lado, como el nuevo libertarismo, de procedencia básicamente anglosajona y austriaca, por el otro, han coincidido en sostener una misma concepción tanto en la teoría como en los hechos, según la cual los derechos auoproclamados de libertad individual sin control por parte del Estado están por encima de cualquier regulación jurídica o moral.
Osvaldo Guariglia, Una ética para el siglo XXI, México, 2001, pp. 140-141
What principles should govern human action? As rational beings, we should act rationally. As moral beings, we should act morally. What, in each case, are the principles involved? What is it to act rationally, or morally? It is often thought, or said, that philosophers are preeminently the people who have (and have neglected) a moral obligation to apply their rational skills to these great questions.
Peter Strawson, ‘The Parfit Connection’, The New York Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 10 (June 14, 1984)
Professional philosophers […] have been more interested in using the issue of famine relief as a club with which to beat utilitarianism over the head for its allegedly extreme demandingness than they have been in upholding the moral necessity of doing far more than most of us do now to aid those in distress—or in exploring why our culture is resistant to that message.
William Shaw, Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999, p. 287
In the mid-1980s I attended a series of graduate seminars, run by Derek Parfit, on Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics. Parfit began the first seminar by claiming that the Methods was the greatest book on ethics ever written.
Roger Crisp, ‘Sidgwick and the Boundaries of Intuitionism’, in Philip Staton-Lake (ed.), Ethical Intuitionisms: Re-Evaluations, Oxford, 2003, p. 56
I’m in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions in the society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism we can’t have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level—there’s a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I’m opposed to political fascism, I’m opposed to economic fascism. I think that until major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it’s pointless to talk about democracy. In this sense, I would describe myself as a libertarian socialist—I’d love to see centralized power eliminated, whether it’s the state or the economy, and have it diffused and ultimately under direct control of the participants. Moreover, I think that’s entirely realistic. Every bit of evidence that exists (there isn’t much) seems to show, for example, that workers’ control increases efficiency. Nevertheless, capitalists don’t want it, naturally; what they’re worried about is control, not the loss of productivity or efficiency.
Noam Chomsky, ‘One man’s view: Noam Chomsky. Are universities too conservative? Do they collude with corporations to obscure the way power works in our society? Noam Chomsky thinks so and explains why’, Business Today, May, 1973
The intuitions which many moral philosophers regard as the final court of appeal are the result of their upbringing—i.e. of the fact that just these level-1 principles were accepted by those who most influenced them. In discussing abortion, we ought to be doing some level-2 thinking; it is therefore quite futile to appeal to those level-1 intuitions that we happen to have acquired. It is a question, not of what our intuitions are, but of what they ought to be.
R. M. Hare, ‘Abortion and the Golden Rule’, in Essays on Bioethics, Oxford, 1999, chap. 10
At its best, utilitarianism is a strong weapon against prejudice and superstition, providing a standard and a procedure that challenge those who claim authority over us in the name of morality.
Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford, 1991, p. 11
Th[e] compartmentalization of academic disciplines is the product of corporate interests rather than scientific and intellectual necessities or practical convenience.
Jorge Malem Seña, ‘Carlos Santiago Nino: A Bio-Bibliographical Sketch’, Inter-American Law Review, vol. 27, no. 1 (1995), p. 46, n. 2
Celebrating power may be the world’s oldest profession among poets and men of letters.
Norman Birnbaum et al., ‘An Appeal from United States Citizens to Friends in Europe’
Reports show that the combined Gross Domestic Product of forty-eight countries is less than the wealth of the three richest people in the world. Fifteen billionaires have assets greater than the total national income of Africa, south of the Sahara. Thirty-two people own more than the annual income of everyone who lives in South Asia. Eighty-four rich people have holdings greater than the GDP of China, a nation with 1.2 billion citizens.
Ken Coates, ‘Post-Labour’s New Imperialism’, The Spokesman, no. 79 (July, 2002), p. 39
Why do we fear the wrong things? Why do so many smokers (whose habit shortens their lives, on average, by about five years) fret before flying (which, averaged across people, shortens life by one day)?
David Myers, ‘Do We Fear the Right Things?’
I am a utilitarian. I am also a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I am a utilitarian.
Peter Singer, ‘Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 9, no. 4 (Summer, 1980), p. 325
[Henry] Spira has a knack for putting things plainly. When I asked him why he has spent more than half a century working for the causes I have mentioned, he said simply that he is on the side of the weak, not the powerful; of the oppressed, not the oppressor; of the ridden, not the rider. And he talks of the vast quantity of pain and suffering that exists in our universe, and of his desire to do something to reduce it. That, I think, is what the left is all about. There are many ways of being on the left, and Spira’s is only one of them, but what motivates him is essential to any genuine left. If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and the poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, or who simply do not have enough to sustain life at a decent level, we are not of the left. If we say that that is just the way the world is, and always will be, and there is nothing we can do about it, we are not part of the left. The left wants to do something about this situation.
Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left, New Haven, 1999, pp. 8-9
Surely if we have learned anything from the history of morals it is that the thing to do with a moral quandary is not to hide it. Like nettles, the occasions when life forces us to choose between the lesser of two evils must be grasped with the consciousness that they are what they are. The vice of this use of the principle that, at certain limiting points, what is utterly immoral cannot be law or lawful is that it will serve to cloak the true nature of the problems with which we are faced and will encourage the romantic optimism that all the values we cherish ultimately will fit into a single system, that no one of them has to be sacrificed or compromised to accommodate another.
H. L. A. Hart, ‘Separation of Law and Morals’, in Ronald Dworkin (ed.), The Philosophy of Law, Oxford, 1977, p. 33
[Lo dicho no] es una aceptación de la ironía moral de sesgo rortiano-posmodernista. Después del holocausto, de la ignominia del terrorismo de Estado impuesto en Argentina por Videla y sus secuaces, de las tragedias colectivas provocadas por el regionalismo nacionalista en la Europa finisecular y ante la injusticia institucionalizada que padece buena parte de la población de nuestra América, la ironía moral es sólo obsceno cinismo.
Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Instituciones suicidas: estudios de ética y política, México, 2000, p. 208
The retributive theory allows criminals to be punished without reference to the social consequences of punishment. But suppose that, for a variety of reasons, punishment significantly increases the crime rate rather than reduces it. Mentally unstable persons might be attracted by the prospect of punishment. Punishment might embitter and alienate criminals from society and increase their criminal activities. If punishment had these and other bad effects, utilitarians would renounce punishment in favour of some other more effective approach for dealing with offenders. But retributivists are still committed to punishing criminals. The effect of retributive punishment in such a situation is that there will be an increase in the number of innocent victims of crime. For whose benefit is punishment to be instituted? Surely not for the benefit of law-abiding citizens who run an increased risk of being victims of crime. Why should innocent people suffer for the sake of dispensing retributive justice?
C. L. Ten, ‘Crime and Punishment’, in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics, Oxford, 1991, p. 369
The rule-bound or superstitious person may adhere to the rule for its own sake, but the rational person would not.
Conrad Johnson, ‘The Authority of the Moral Agent’, in Samuel Scheffler (ed.), Consequentialism and its Critics, Oxford, 1988, p. 262
Curiosamente, un defensor coherente del valor de la diversidad debería estar dispuesto a admitir como algo valioso la peculiaridad cultural de los etnocentristas.
Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Instituciones suicidas: estudios de ética y política, México, 2000, p. 208