Catherine Wilson Quotes

Quotes about:

• We are now returning to the 18th century empirical approach with the new interest in the evolutionary basis of ethics, with 'experimental' moral philosophy and moral psychology. As a result, we understand better why moral formulas are experienced as ineluctable commands, even if there is no commander and even if the notion of an inescapable obligation is just superstition. So moral philosophy has made huge progress.

  Catherine Wilson

  Philosophy, Psychology, Progress

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

• The moves to contractualism and utilitarianism required some extra ingredients besides mortalism, the denial that God is in charge of the world, and the doctrine that physical and psychological pain are the greatest evils.

  Catherine Wilson

  Pain, Moving, Evil

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  8 Copy quote

• You can reasonably make the intellectual journey from thinking it's permissible to eat shrimp to thinking it's not permissible, or vice versa, whereas our slavery journey was uni-directional. We are as certain we are not going back to that old kind of slavery as we are that we aren't going back to the geocentric universe.

  Catherine Wilson

  Journey, Thinking, Intellectual

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Human courtship has some wild extremes. At one end of the spectrum, there is harassment, pestering, blackmail, and an abuse of institutional power, which its targets rightly fear and loathe. At the other end is love, which as Nietzsche said, is beyond good and evil and always deserves our respect and compassion even when it is doomed or destructive. In the wide middle of the spectrum are all the ambiguous and tragi-comic goings-on of our species.

  Catherine Wilson

  Compassion, Evil, Abuse

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  18 Copy quote

• We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We discussed it for centuries in metaphysical, economic, biological, and philosophical terms; we listened to all the arguments pro and con, we read all the testimonies of slaves and witnesses, and we decided. Though this 'we" is not everybody on earth, or even most people, who've never thought about slavery much.

  Catherine Wilson

  Philosophical, People, Slavery

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

• People's wants are not fixed; they generally want what others in their chosen comparison class appear to be enjoying and what advertising presents to them as attainable for them and as bringing happiness.

  Catherine Wilson

  Class, People, Want

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• We have to gamble, and sometimes lose as George Ainslie argues; this keeps the appetite for life sharp.

  Catherine Wilson

  Appetite For Life, Arguing, Sometimes

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• It used to be that nobody would really argue with a woman, because what she thought (unless it was by way of providing helpful comments about one's own work) just didn't matter.

  Catherine Wilson

  Matter, Way, Arguing

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• 'Contract' succeeded 'status' as the basic organising principle in modern political vs. ancient society.

  Catherine Wilson

  Political, Principles, Ancient

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• In the old systems, hierarchies emanate power from above to below through forms of line management and are ideologically supported by cosmologies and theologies featuring celestial rulers and their deputies - the 'rule of the best.'

  Catherine Wilson

  Lines, Hierarchy, Management

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

• Atomism had no absolute 'above' and 'below' and no such rulers, so favoured the undersranding of justice as an agreement amongst equals.

  Catherine Wilson

  Agreement, Justice, Above And Below

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Epicurus thought of justice as an agreement to prevent people harming and being harmed.

  Catherine Wilson

  Agreement, People, Justice

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• We use and need to use both systems in complex political societies, and we oscillate in our commitments, because both oligarchy and rule by the will of masses have their bad points, as the ancient philosophers all knew.

  Catherine Wilson

  Commitment, Political, Needs

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• There's Hobbes, who understood in the 1640s that the sovereign is not an appointee of God, or even a figure of superior virtue and wisdom, but just a functional device whose role is to keep people from hurting and killing each other.

  Catherine Wilson

  Hurt, People, Roles

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Moral theory develops from the divine command theory of medieval Christian philosophy, mixed up with a bit of ancient pagan virtue theory, to the purely secular moral sentiment and interpersonal reaction theories of Smith and Hume, to Kant's attempt to restore command theory but with something supersensible in the individual rather than God as the source of authority.

  Catherine Wilson

  Christian, Philosophy, Moral

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't see how being a faster runner, or a better mathematician makes you 'deserve' access to a better life, or more influence on policy, in the absence of a social decision to play that game in the way it's proposed to be organised for some set of benefits.

  Catherine Wilson

  Games, Play, Decision

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you live in an acquisitive society you are likely to be acquisitive, but it isn't deeply rooted in human nature, except in the sense that it's deeply rooted to be psychologically receptive to your peers and to advertising.

  Catherine Wilson

  Peers, Advertising, Human Nature

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• There are people who organise the contest, winners, losers, and people who benefit from the contest taking place.

  Catherine Wilson

  People, Benefits, Loser

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• People should be able to develop their abilities and interests and have access to such goods as friendship, artistry, and nature and a political voice. It's possible to be poor and yet have all this, but in a polarized society, and one where culture and adventure have been thoroughly monetised, it is a lot more difficult.

  Catherine Wilson

  Adventure, Voice, People

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Even if you just want to make a simple clothing item for yourself or go for a long hike in the forest - something we imagine requires absolutely no resources - you have to go to the store and buy a lot of stuff, and probably use a car.

  Catherine Wilson

  Simple, Car, Long

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Highly unequal societies are morally defective because they get to be that way through the exploitation by the clever and well-positioned ones of the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of others. The well-off then use their acquired political power to refuse to make sacrifices for others. This system brings us a wonderful range of products and experiences for consumers at the top of the privilege scale, but it also degrades and benumbs the workers at the lower end, as Adam Smith and Marx both said.

  Catherine Wilson

  Clever, Sacrifice, Political

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

• I have to say that some philosophers such as the late Bernard Williams, and I would include myself in this group, would say that tranquillity is overrated as the goal of life.

  Catherine Wilson

  Goal, Groups, Philosopher

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Epicurus was in favour of friendly sex but not of grand passions or marriage and children, viewing them as sources of trouble and vexation.

  Catherine Wilson

  Sex, Children, Passion

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Outside of mathematics and logic, there are common sense truths, such as that it is snowing that normal observers, in a specified context can agree on, subject to vagueness considerations, and theoretical truths, such as that snow is crystallised water vapour, and maybe in-between truths.

  Catherine Wilson

  Snow, Common Sense, Water

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• The (atomic) soul is mortal, and the best life is the one with the least pain and the most pleasure.

  Catherine Wilson

  Pain, Soul, Life Is

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

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