John Rawls book A Theory of Justice
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 10, pg. 58
Homosexuality: The Psychology of the Creative Process (1971)
John Rawls book A Theory of Justice
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 10, pg. 58
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia
"Resolution on the Antiwar Congress of the London Bureau" (July 1936)
Raymond Aron (1905–1983) French philosopher, sociologist, journalist, and political scientist
The Opium of Intellectuals (1955), Conclusion: The End of the Ideological Age?
Dmitry Peskov (1967) Russian politician
"Kremlin says peace talks should continue, lashes 'hostile' Ukraine" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-talks-with-ukraine-not-easy-important-that-they-continue-ria-2022-04-02/, Reuters, 2 April 2022 <br class="br">CNN Interview (March 2022)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.
Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher
Le Catéchisme positiviste (1852)
Context: Social positivism only accepts duties, for all and towards all. Its constant social viewpoint cannot include any notion of rights, for such notion always rests on individuality. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. These obligations then increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service. … Any human right is therefore as absurd as immoral. Since there are no divine rights anymore, this concept must therefore disappear completely as related only to the preliminary regime and totally inconsistent with the final state where there are only duties based on functions.
Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher
"Hayek and conservatism", in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (2006)