Source: "The Population Ecology of Organizations," 1977, p. 931
“An undifferentiated absolute is normatively impotent because it can offer no principle for the apportionment of responsibility.”
Source: Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (1976), p. 66
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David L. Norton 13
American philosopher 1930–1995Related quotes

"Le concept de l'absolu, d'où découlent, dans le domaine moral, les lois ou normes morales, constitue, le principe d'identité, qui est la loi fondamentale de la pensée; il en découle les normes logiques qui régissent la pensée dans le domaine de la science."
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 59 [Hélène Claparède-Spir had underlined - the translator]
Source: "A multiple-layer model of market-oriented organizational culture", 2000, p. 451

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Context: Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.
I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…

“Relativity theory forced the abandonment, in principle, of absolute space and absolute time.”
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 43

In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
Early career years (1898–1929)

To Leon Goldensohn, March 31, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Source: António Costa (2022) cited in: " Portugal election: Socialists win unexpected majority https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60194375" in BBC News, 31 January 2022.

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: No one ever seriously affirmed the literal freedom of will. Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore the ideally free individual is responsible only to himself. This principle is the philosophical foundation of anarchism, and, for anything that science has yet proved, may be the philosophical foundation of the Universe; but it is fatal to all society and is especially hostile to the State. Perhaps the Church of the thirteenth century might have found a way to use even this principle for a good purpose; certainly the influence of Saint Bernard was sufficiently unsocial and that of Saint Francis was sufficiently unselfish to conciliate even anarchists of the militant class.