“There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.”

—  William James

"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", International Journal of Ethics (April 1891)
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Context: There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see. Abstract rules indeed can help; but they help the less in proportion as our intuitions are more piercing, and our vocation is the stronger for the moral life. For every real dilemma is in literal strictness a unique situation; and the exact combination of ideals realized and ideals disappointed which each decision creates is always a universe without a precedent, and for which no adequate previous rule exists.

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William James246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910

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