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I think it is clear that what we ought to do has to be independent of our decisions about what to do, and independent of any procedures we might use in making such decisions.

Allen W. Wood

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Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Making
Use
Might
Procedures
Think
Decisions
Thinking
Independent
Ought
Decision
Clear

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

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If the problem of free will is to see how freedom fits into the order of nature, then Kant's basic view about the free will problem is that it is insoluble.
Allen W. Wood
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Many who are committed to reason and science have turned against religion altogether and treat it with fear and contempt.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant is not saying - about freedom or any other subject - anything of the form: Not-p but we must assume that p. That's close to self-contradictory, like Moore's paradox: p, but I don't believe that p.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant can provide, and has provided, a good model for philosophers to think about the relation of metaphysics to science and scientific methodology.
Allen W. Wood
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The species of anti-Enlightenment religion we find among evangelical protestants is far more impoverished, anti-intellectual and downright wretched.
Allen W. Wood
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It would be nice, wouldn't it? if we could get comfortable about the problem of freedom. Kant thinks that we can't.
Allen W. Wood
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Capitalism now seems more likely a swamp, a bog, a quicksand in which humanity is presently flailing about, unable to extricate itself, perhaps doomed to perish within a few generations from the long term effects of the technology which seemed to Marx its greatest gift to humanity.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant thinks we can show that there is no contradiction in supposing we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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The relation of the law to the self is only a helpful way of thinking about the law, that helps us better understand its validity for us.
Allen W. Wood
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Not only in order to act morally, but even to formulate theoretical questions, devise experiments, choose which ones to perform and what conclusions to draw from then - we must presuppose that we are free. That's the sense in which it is true that for Kant we must assume we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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I do not know how much my own work has achieved, and I must not pretend it has done more than it has.
Allen W. Wood
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It is often difficult to know about one's own era which philosophers in it will be remembered as the most important ones, but I think it is already clear that John Rawls is the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century.
Allen W. Wood
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We can establish empirical criteria for free actions, and investigate human actions on the presupposition we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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Not only our moral life, but even our use of theoretical reason - on which we rely in rationally inquiring into nature - presupposes that we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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Capitalism has proven to be a far more terrible system than Marx could ever bring himself to imagine. Those who are so deluded as to find something good in it, or even feel loyalty toward it, are its most pitiful victims.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant certainly was sympathetic with the metaphysical tradition of rational theology that he criticized.
Allen W. Wood
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The problem I see with utilitarianism, or any form of consequentialism, is not that it gets the wrong answers to moral questions. I think just about any moral theory, worked out intelligently, and applied with good judgment, would get just about the same results as any other.
Allen W. Wood
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Sometimes when a philosopher's views are widely rejected by the world, the fault is not with the philosopher but with the world.
Allen W. Wood
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Fichte is a necessary step to both Hegel and Marx.
Allen W. Wood
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I am a one-trick pony. But I have worked hard at something I would have liked to do even if I weren't paid a penny for it, and made a good living at it. You can't be luckier than that in this life, no matter who you are or what you do.
Allen W. Wood