Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Even
Inquiring
Life
Theoretical
Rely
Moral
Free
Use
Nature
Presupposes
Reason
Rationally

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

Image
Kant says that we may regard ourselves as legislator of the moral law, and consider ourselves as its author, but not that we are legislators or authors of the law.
Allen W. Wood
Image
We usually can't know how, and we probably should not even ask, how our lives contribute to a better world.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant certainly was sympathetic with the metaphysical tradition of rational theology that he criticized.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant did think he had a moral route back to rational faith in God, for those who need it, and he thought that at some level, we all do need something like it.
Allen W. Wood
Image
We can make mistakes about what we ought to do, and these are not the same as making bad decisions about what to do.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant considers belief in God and immortality to be items of faith because he relates faith to the pursuit of ends - in this case, the highest good.
Allen W. Wood
Image
It seems to me self-evident that it is worthwhile to understand the best thoughts of the past, to appropriate them, to criticize them.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Philosophy is about getting the facts right, but it is also about thinking rightly about them. Philosophy is more about the latter than the former.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant does not think that the silly commandment universalize your maxims is the be-all and end-all of ethics or that it provides us with some sort of general decision procedure that is supposed to tell us what to do under all circumstances.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant has been famous for his rejection of eudaimonism, but I think Kantian ethics has a great deal in common with Aristotle, and some things in common with Stoicism as well. The traditions tend, I believe, to talk past each other when it comes to happiness or eudaimonia.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Adam Smith saw the greed of modern capitalism for what it was - a form of destructive ambition that may have favorable effects on the productive capacities of society, but which is of no direct benefit to anyone - not even to the greedy themselves, whose illusory chase after a will-o-the-wisp leaves them morally bankrupt and unhappy.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant takes a free will to be a being or substance with the power to cause a state of the world (or a whole series of such states) spontaneously or from itself.
Allen W. Wood
Image
I think the term Kantian constructivism as an oxymoron. Kant was a constructivist about mathematics, but not about ethics.
Allen W. Wood
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.
Allen W. Wood
Image
I could identify for virtually every important figure in the history of modern continental philosophy an idea (or more than one) absolutely central to that philosopher's thought, whose original author was Fichte.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Karl Marx left it to others to find the way beyond capitalism to a higher form of society. He saw his role as giving them as accurate a theory as he could of how capitalism works, which would also show them the reasons why it needs to be abolished and replaced by a freer and more human form of society.
Allen W. Wood
Image
It is probably not a good idea to ask someone to expound a position they do not accept and do not feel they even fully understand.
Allen W. Wood
Image
In any matter of moral importance, our first task, before we plunge ahead and decide what to do, is to figure out what we ought to do.
Allen W. Wood