A Quote by Torbjorn Tannsjo
Being a moral realist I see normative ethics as a search of the truth about our obligations and a search of explanation; the idea is that moral principles can help us to a moral explanation of our particular obligations.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
A psychological explanation of our feelings is not a moral explanation of our conduct.
Being vegan is not a matter of "lifestyle." It is a matter of fundamental moral obligation. Is being vegan a matter of "choice"? Only insofar as we are able to choose to ignore our moral obligations not to exploit the vulnerable.
To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.
People talk about the idea of special relationships, that is, the morality only really binds people who stand in some kind of contractual relationship with each other but in fact if you take that seriously as a criteria of when we have a moral relationship then it's hard to see why we would have moral obligations to strangers for example or people who live across the sea from us but yet, every decent person believes that we do.
We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.
Since my moral system rests on my accepted version of the facts, he who denies my moral judgments or my version of the facts, is to me perverse, alien, dangerous. How shall I account for him? The opponent has always to be explained, and the last explanation that we ever look for is that he sees a different set of facts. Such an explanation we avoid, because it saps the very foundation of our own assurance that we have seen life steadily and seen it whole.
Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reliance on signs, however, can lead to the evasion of all moral obligations, and thus earn a terrible judgment.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.
Normative ethics, pursued as a free, systematic, and critical attempt to find moral truth, regardless of religious and other authorities, is a rather new adventure. Let's wait and see what will happen!
The logical outcome of evolution is that it makes monsters. We turn into monsters because evolution takes away everything that makes us human in the sense of our moral accountability, our moral absolutes, and our idea of being distinct from the animal kingdom.
God doesn't help. I think that's a knockdown argument. I think that it really shows that whatever moral knowledge we have and whatever moral progress we make in our knowledge or whatever progress we make in our moral knowledge is not coming really from religion. It's coming from the very hard work really of moral philosophy, of trying to ground our moral reasonings.
I look at the most promising putative moral theories. I construct crucial thought experiments in areas where they give conflicting advice. I confront their conflicting advice with my own moral sensitivity, my moral intuition. I take the theory that can best explain the content of my intuitions as gaining inductive support through an inference to the best explanation.
Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
God has so framed us as to make freedom of choice and action the very basis of all moral improvement, and all our faculties, mental and moral, resent and revolt against the idea of coercion.
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.
Related Authors
Alexander Gustafsson Quotes
Swedish
Mixed Martial Artist
Dag Hammarskjold Quotes
Swedish
Diplomat
Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes
Swedish
Scientist
Greta Thunburg Quotes
Swedish
Environmentalist
Ingmar Bergman Quotes
Swedish
Director
Jens Lekman Quotes
Swedish
Musician
Joel Kinnaman Quotes
Swedish
Actor
Lykke Li Quotes
Swedish
Musician
Mats Wilander Quotes
Swedish
Athlete
Max von Sydow Quotes
Swedish
Actor
Peter Sunde Quotes
Swedish
Businessman
Steig Larsson Quotes
Swedish
Journalist
Stellan Skarsgard Quotes
Swedish
Actor
Sven-Goran Eriksson Quotes
Swedish
Manager
Tobias Forge Quotes
Swedish
Musician
Zlatan Ibrahimovic Quotes
Swedish
Athlete