Allen W. Wood: Quotes about nature

Allen W. Wood is academic. Explore interesting quotes on nature.

Allen W. Wood: 28 quotes0 likes

“There are two main reasons that Kant refuses to allow that sympathy or any other empirical sentiment or desire could constitute the foundation of morality. One is that no sentiment of this kind can yield the kinds of objective and universal principles that morality requires. They can approximate to this only by claiming a greater empirical uniformity in human nature than experience shows to be there. […] Kant’s other main reason for rejecting sympathy or love as the basis of morality involves his view of the empirical psychology of these feelings as they arise in us in our social condition, and especially in the “civilized” condition of modern European society.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)

“Don’t children have the same rights to life and equal concern as adults? Don’t we have moral reasons to concern ourselves with the welfare of nonrational beings, such as animals? Mustn’t that status rest on some value independent of the rational nature in persons?
Kantian ethics must answer the last question in the negative, but it answers the other two in the affirmative. I think the right account of the moral status of nonrational living things and of human beings who lack personality in the strict sense can best be derived from Kantian principles, even though Kant himself did not worry about these questions as much as he should have, and some of the things he said about them do not seem to me entirely cogent, or to be the best account available to him.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)

“Good will is obviously present also in the case where the innocently goodhearted person acts beneficently because she enjoys it. As already mentioned, certain moral psychologies even encourage us to think that this innocent good-heartedness is the only thing we could possibly mean by a “good will.” Kant’s claim is that it is not, and that the true value of good will “shines forth more brightly” when it is found in the contrasting case, where it must struggle to overcome adversity. This claim certainly has an air of paradox about it, because it means that what is most essentially deserving of moral esteem is found only in cases where the moral agent is faced with conflicting motivations, or at least with an absence of any natural, spontaneous motivation to do the right thing.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)

“Treating a being as an end in itself means respecting the value of what makes it such an end. After we see that this value resides in rational nature, we see it implies that, at least in general, rational beings should not be subjected to deception or coercion. Instead, we should seek to harmonize our strivings with those of other rational beings toward their ends.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)

“Kant’s theory of freedom, and especially the idea that we are free only in the intelligible world beyond nature, has also been the chief stumbling block to the acceptance of his moral philosophy. The scandal has only increased with the passage of time, as fewer and fewer moral philosophers find it tolerable to burden morality with an extravagant supernaturalist metaphysics.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)