Notice that tearing oneself out of the insensible state is the opposite of remaining in it; the man who is beneficent from duty nevertheless acts with feelings, if not with empirical inclinations. Allen W. Wood More Quotes by Allen W. Wood More Quotes From Allen W. Wood It is a culturally interesting (but also deeply depressing) fact that many religious claims seem to retain their emotional power for believers only if taken in ways that are intellectually unsupportable and even morally contemptible. Allen W. Wood depressing taken religious It is both theoretically mistaken and morally wrong to regard others as objects of investigation rather than partners in free rational communication. Allen W. Wood investigation partners communication We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free action and communicative interaction with us. Allen W. Wood objectifying errors action I think the contribution people make is not proportionate to their fame or success. In fact, I think the relation is often inverse. Allen W. Wood facts people thinking Leaders of nations, and people whose wealth or fame gives them power over the lives of others quite often do more harm than good. Allen W. Wood leader giving people People who enjoy the privileges of success must use these privileges to benefit those who do not have them. These privileges constitute a deep hole they need to climb out of if they are to prevent its being the case that the world would have been better off if they had never been born. Allen W. Wood use people needs Since we cannot know too much about the long term effects of our particular lives, and since success and fame are not good measures of the value of what we have done, it should be enough for any of us that as far as we can tell, in some small way we have made humanity's future better rather than worse. Allen W. Wood done humanity long What I most fear now is that within a century or so there may not be any human future at all. Allen W. Wood century humans may What are we to think of the shortsightedness of the great mass of people who are content to do nothing about it, and even worse, the greed or venality of the rich and powerful who deliberately bar the way to human survival? Allen W. Wood powerful people thinking Kant takes a free will to be a being or substance with the power to cause a state of the world (or a whole series of such states) spontaneously or from itself. Allen W. Wood causes substance world Fichte takes an I or free will to be not a thing or being but an act which is not undetermined but self-determined, in accordance with reasons or norms rationally self-given. Allen W. Wood free-will determined self Kant thinks that a free will is a will under moral laws and that freedom and the moral law are distinct thoughts that reciprocally imply each other. Fichte thinks they are the same thought. Allen W. Wood moral law thinking The moral law is simply the way we think our own freedom as self-determination. Allen W. Wood determination self thinking No theory about our bodies as mere objects of observation and calculation (as distinct from partners in communicative interaction, assumed to be free) can comprehend human nature. Allen W. Wood partners human-nature body It is a cause of shame to any member of the human race to be a member of the same species some of whose members could vote for any candidate for president that has been offered by the Republican party. Such people seem to be motivated only by short-sighted greed, ignorance, fear and hatred. Allen W. Wood party ignorance race Until I was a junior in high school, I was a "boy scientist" type and expected to go into chemistry. Then I discovered the humanities. I read the plays of Shakespeare voraciously, some novels, such as Pasternack's Dr. Zhivago and Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, and I got into philosophy by reading Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Allen W. Wood reading philosophy school Kant's system of duties constitutes a Doctrine of Virtue because the duties also indicate what kinds of attitudes, dispositions and feelings are morally virtuous or vicious. Allen W. Wood doctrine feelings attitude Kant's description of most ethical duties reads more like a description of moral virtues and vices. Once we see this, we see that Kantian ethics is indeed a kind of virtue ethics, and that it does not "divide the heart from the head" (to anticipate one of your later questions) but instead recognizes the deep truth that reason and emotion are not opposites. Allen W. Wood reason-and-emotion opposites heart Reason necessarily expresses itself through emotions and emotions are healthy only insofar as they are expressions of reason. Allen W. Wood healthy emotion expression From the beginning, there has been a tension in the reception of the Kantian idea of autonomy. If you emphasize the 'nomos' (the law), then you get one picture: the objectivity of ethics. If you emphasize the 'autos' - the self - you get the idea that we make the law. Kant never hesitated in his choice between the two emphases. He emphasizes the nomos (the universal and objective validity of the law). Allen W. Wood objectivity self law
