A Quote by Allen W. Wood

As I understand it, Kantian constructivism is partly a position in normative ethics and partly a position in metaethics. In metaethics, it is the position that ethical claims have truth values, but their truth conditions consist not in a set of objective facts to which they correspond, but instead in the outcome of some procedure of deliberation resulting in decisions about what to do.
If we decide rightly what to do, or use a correct procedure for making such decisions, that has to be because the decisions or the procedure rest on good reasons, and these reasons consist in the apprehension of truths about what we ought to do. Because these truths must constitute reasons for our decisions, and because in the rational order, reasons must always precede the decisions based on them, the truth conditions of claims about what we ought to cannot be reduced to, or constructed out of, decisions about what to do, or procedures for making such decisions.
From a purely external point of view there is no will; and to find will in any phenomenon requires a certain empathy; we observe aman's actions and place ourselves partly but not wholly in his position; or we act, and place ourselves partly in the position of an outsider.
Political leaders or governments owe their position partly to force and partly to popular election. They cannot be regarded as representative of best elements, morally or intellectually, in their respective nations.
Positive economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgment...In short, positive economics is or can be an "objective" science.
[Eugene Smith] was always writing these diatribes about truth, and how he wanted to tell the truth, the truth, the truth. It was a real rebel position. It was kind of like a teenager's position: why can't things be like they should be? Why can't I do what I want? I latched on to that philosophy. One day I snapped, hey, you know, I know a story that no one's ever told, never seen, and I've lived it. It's my own story and my friends' story.
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.
Not many know this, but in training sessions, I like to play in the center-back position sometimes. I think I'm good at that position, and my father used to be a central defender. Some people don't realize that if you play in that position, you can better understand how the defender thinks.
The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of selection,-for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled by experience,-we gain vastly in our command over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science
The point is that these decisions they've made are partly for your convenience and partly for theirs and partly out of stereotypes that they carry with them from the conventions of the computer field.
I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.
It's a bit like some martial arts: if you're behind somebody there's not much they can do, if you're in a certain position. So same thing with a fish, if you're in the right position you're okay. As soon as you get in the wrong position you can be in very real danger.
I think the term "Kantian constructivism" as an oxymoron. Kant was a constructivist about mathematics, but not about ethics.
In my view, there was a long period in which analytical philosophy had little to say about ethics. I think their intellectual tools did not do well with it, and analytical philosophy was above all about revolutionizing the philosophical tool box. It was more or less assumed that the Truth about ethics was some form of utilitarianism (perhaps because some consequentialist calculus looked to them like a respectable tool). Kantian ethics was then interpreted as a particularly odious version of the False - "deontology" - and treated with contempt.
I'm in the perfect position. It's a sports position and a political position where I can help better the lives of athletes around the world.
When everyone in America knows you're in a dreadful position, admit you're in a dreadful position. Don't lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink.
Whatever the truth is about the extent to which truth is respected in the future, it is going to depend partly on what we do. More important than making predictions is doing things which help bring about this respect.
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