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

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. . . I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus they suck the life right out of a party.

Catherine Wilson

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

Ancient, Contract, Political, Principle, Principles

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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.

Century, Philosophy, Progress, Psychology, Understand

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.

People, Philosophical, Slavery, Specific, Terms, Truth

About 70% of what I've written about is centered on the clashes and conformities between the emerging life and physical sciences and older metaphysical frameworks in the 17th and 18th centuries. The other 30% consists of one-off essays or researches into other intriguing contemporary topics such as visual experience, aesthetics, social justice issues, and the epistemology of moral knowledge.

Consists, Intriguing, Issues, Justice, Physical, Topics

Gentlemanly, principled, helpful behaviour by older men vis-a-vis young women goes unnoticed, but it deserves real moral credit, and we could use more first-person testimony from the beneficiaries and practitioners about that too.

Deserves, Firsts, Men, Moral, Real

There is no single test or formula for producing moral progress anymore than there is for generating scientific truths. It is a process involving theoreticians, fact-gatherers, protestors, martyrs for the cause, authors of first- person narratives who change the way we see and evaluate the distribution of harms and benefits.

Causes, Firsts, Martyrs, Progress, Single, Way

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Marilyn Ferguson

Things fall apart, so they can fall together at a higher level of order.

Fall, Order, Things, Together

Rene Descartes

This result could have been achieved either by his [God] endowing my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything about which I would ever deliberate, or simply by impressing the following rule so firmly upon my memory that I could never forget it: I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand.

Achieved, Following, God, Judging, Memories, Perception

Dennis Lehane

. . . I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus they suck the life right out of a party.

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Maria Montessori

Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.

Education, Human, Path, Release

Anthony of Padua

Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day's problems.

Church, Date, Easy, Meaningful, Men, Simple