A Quote by Frans de Waal

Morality, after all, has nothing to do with selflessness. On the contrary, self-interest is precisely the basis of the categorical imperative.

Frans de Waal

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After Basis Categorical Imperative Contrary Imperative Interest Morality Nothing On The Contrary Precisely Self Self-Interest Selflessness

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Frans de Waal
Dutch - Scientist
Born: October 29, 1948

If you say morality is just what you like, you lose the metaphysical level of what in the history of philosophy is called 'categorical imperative.'

Emir Kusturica

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.

Thomas Jefferson

Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.

William Sloane Coffin

After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution.

Kenzaburo Oe

By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary; hence the need of religion and morality to reinforce self-interest.

Bertrand Russell

Categorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob. It makes cowards brave. And there is nothing more fearful than a religious mob, a mob overflowing with righteousness – as at the crucifixion and before and since. This can happen only after we have made a categorical refusal to kindness: to heretics, foreigners, enemies or any other group different from ourselves.

Wendell Berry

There is only one categorical imperative in golf, and that is to hit the ball. There are no minor absolutes.

Charles Walter Simpson

My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

Immanuel Kant

God's command 'Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature' was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant.

Elisabeth Elliot

The [National Socialist] Party...is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-interest.

Adolf Hitler

There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape.

Oriana Fallaci

The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.

Peter Watts

When I ask people to contemplate selflessness, the sometimes react as if I've asked them to put their house on the market or give away all their money. If there was a self that existed in the way we think, discovering selflessness would be like putting our house on the market. But in the Buddhist tradition, the discovery of selflessness is called "completely joyful." It's not called "the raw end of the deal," or "I'd rather go back to bed," or "This is scary and depressing."

Sakyong Mipham

The true artist doesn't substitute immorality for morality. On the contrary, he always substitutes a finer morality for a grosser one.

D. H. Lawrence

Politics now is really only about self-interest, which means it has violence built into it because your self-interest is going to collide with the self-interest of the rest of the world. That's inevitable.

Pankaj Mishra

A Quote by Frans de Waal

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