Julian Baggini: Even if we can agree that some things are natural and...

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right.

Julian Baggini

second-chance redemption atheist

The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.

Julian Baggini

judgmental moral vices

There have been a number of philosophers who have reveled in the dismantling of truth. I think they did so with good ethical motives, and for good philosophical reasons. I can see the sense in what they were talking about; the idea that truth is often claimed by elites in order to further certain agendas. They crowd-out alternative perspectives - particularly those of the powerless. But the undermining of truth contributed - in the weird, indirect way that philosophy contributes to the culture - to a rejection of the idea of truth as having any kind of proper meaning at all.

Julian Baggini

philosophical philosophy thinking

Economics is uncertain because its fundamental subject matter is not money but human action. That's why economics is not the dismal science, it's no science at all.

Julian Baggini

fundamentals matter action

The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.

Julian Baggini

obfuscation healthy mind

I don't think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive.

Julian Baggini

modesty charity thinking

I don't think there is ever a direct connection between the philosophical community and the wider populus. I'm very aware of this because I've been working on a book on ideas in global philosophy and you always find some kind of relation between the dominant philosophies in a culture and the folk philosophy but it's not a straight-down dissemination. It's partly bottom-up. Thinkers are the products of the cultures they grew-up in. They aspire to thinking purely objectively and universally, but they are often reflecting ways of thought that are embedded in a culture.

Julian Baggini

philosophical philosophy book

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

Julian Baggini

shapes choices believe

Love is indeed at root the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones.

Julian Baggini

neurons roots love-is

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

Julian Baggini

differences complaining animal

A lot of religious belief - even the majority - involves making factual claims about the world which do come into conflict with science and history. For Christians, a test of this is the Empty Tomb. I ask Christians: 'are you saying that it does not matter - as a matter of fact - whether or not Christ's tomb was empty and that he was resurrected?' At that point, I find that, to a lot of them, it really does matter, despite all the fine talk about not wanting to confuse science and history with religion.

Julian Baggini

religious christian world

Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.

Julian Baggini

without-god morality independent

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim "never say never" is one of the most important in ethics.

Julian Baggini

golden important may

Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.

Julian Baggini

religious suffering believe

People seem very arrogant when they say 'I'm right and you're wrong', but in practice we all believe we're right. We have a staggering arrogance in our own belief. That can be tempered by not being 100% certain; by being provisional. No matter what the debate is, very few people have the modesty to suspend judgement on a whole range of things; most intelligent people have an opinion and are expected to have an opinion by other people - but it always requires making a personal judgement that goes way-beyond your expertise. We do it all the time.

Julian Baggini

intelligent believe people

The truly humble feel the ground beneath their feet every day and do not only become aware of it when held aloft or pushed down to their knees.

Julian Baggini

knees humble feet

No one who has understood even a fraction of what science has told us about the universe can fail to be in awe of both the cosmos and of science.

Julian Baggini

cosmos fractions failing

The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it's possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success.

Julian Baggini

progress real believe

I am very Aristotelian in approach - not in detail - so I always find I'm saying things that get people frustrated like 'It's a matter of balance and judgement'. To a lot of philosophers these are terrible words because they're admitting of vagueness and uncertainty. The more I've done philosophy, the more I've become convinced that that is the way it is.

Julian Baggini

frustrated philosophy people

Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about a lot of things.

Julian Baggini

doe people world

Even if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing. There is no factual reason to suppose that what is natural is good (or at least better) and what is unnatural is bad (or at least worse).