“The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.”

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter IX, Section 83, p. 554

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed." by John Rawls?

John Rawls63

American political philosopher 1921–2002

Related quotes

“Where Nature’s end of language is declin’d,
And men talk only to conceal the mind.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

Satire II, l. 207.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)

“Vague a l'ame — melancholy yearning for the end of the world.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“The dominance of grey technology is now coming to an end.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: All through our history, we have been changing the world with our technology. Our technology has been of two kinds, green and grey. Green technology is seeds and plants, gardens and vineyards and orchards, domesticated horses and cows and pigs, milk and cheese, leather and wool. Grey technology is bronze and steel, spears and guns, coal and oil and electricity, automobiles and airplanes and rockets, telephones and computers. Civilization began with green technology, with agriculture and animal-breeding, ten thousand years ago. Then, beginning about three thousand years ago, grey technology became dominant, with mining and metallurgy and machinery. For the last five hundred years, grey technology has been racing ahead and has given birth to the modern world of cities and factories and supermarkets.
The dominance of grey technology is now coming to an end.

“The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.”

Robert F. Kennedy book The Pursuit of Justice

"Berlin East and West," The Pursuit of Justice https://books.google.com/books?id=o3mHAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22The+free+way+of+life+proposes+ends%2C+but+it+does+not+prescribe+means.%22, pt. 5, (1964), p. 108

“A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XLIV, sec. 15
History of Rome

“But it is clear there is a difference in the ends proposed: for in some cases they are activities, and in others results beyond the mere activities, and where there are certain ends beyond and beside the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities. Now, as there are numerous kinds of actions and numerous arts and sciences, it follows that the ends are also various. Thus the end of the healing art is health, of ship-building ships, of strategy victory, of economy wealth.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

“Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

New York Times (November 28, 1954).
Judicial opinions

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“What is the true End of Monarchy? Not to deprive People of their natural Liberty; but to correct their Actions, in order to attain the supreme Good.
The Form of Government, therefore, which best attains this End, and at the same Time sets less Bounds than others to natural Liberty, is that which coincides with the Views and Purposes of rational Creatures, and answers the End, upon which we ought to fix a steadfast Eye in the Regulations of civil Polity.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

“What is at first small is often extremely large in the end. And so it happens that whoever deviates only a little from truth in the beginning is led farther and farther afield in the sequel, and to errors which are a thousand times as large.”

Franz Brentano (1838–1917) Austrian philosopher

Was klein ist im Beginn wird oft am Ende überaus groß sein. Und so geschieht es, das wer im Anfange auch nur um ein Weniges von der Wahrheit abweicht, im Verlauf immer weiter und weiter und zu tausendmal größern Irrthümer fortgeführt wird.
On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862)

“The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Rawls63

Related quotes

Related topics