Quote

We can never prove that we are free or integrate our freedom in any way into our objective conception of the causal order of nature.

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
Prove
Freedom
Free
Causal
Order
Integrate
Nature
Integrating
Way
Objective
Never
Conception
Objectives

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

Image
Those who see Smith as a defender of capitalism - as it existed in Marx's day, or as it exists today - show above all that they are not living in the real world. They are behaving as though the undeveloped form of capitalism Smith studied is still with us.
Allen W. Wood
Image
We can establish empirical criteria for free actions, and investigate human actions on the presupposition we are free.
Allen W. Wood
Image
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
Image
Our procedures of deliberation are not ways of finding out independent moral truths but instead ways of constructing these truths, in the process of deciding what to do.
Allen W. Wood
Image
We are generally forced to choose one way or the other of distancing ourselves from Kant. I suppose I tend to choose the irreligious way. But I regret that Kant's path has not been followed.
Allen W. Wood
Image
We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free action and communicative interaction with us.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Fichte takes an I or free will to be not a thing or being but an act which is not undetermined but self-determined, in accordance with reasons or norms rationally self-given.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Popular religion since the time of Kant and Fichte has gone in a direction they tried to prevent and that has been disastrous for the humanity both of believers and of the rest of us. Look at the role of religion in Republican presidential primaries if you need any confirmation of this last statement.
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
In general, those who defend capitalism are basically out of touch with reality.
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
Image
Utilitarians are usually empiricists who think they can solve every problem by accumulating enough empirical facts. They do not realize that thinking as well as experience is necessary to know anything or get anything right.
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
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.
Allen W. Wood
Image
For the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good the utilitarian adopts) and about which actions or moral rules would contribute to maximizing the good. For the rational intuitionist, there are truths about which actions should be done and not done.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Teaching and writing about philosophy is about the only thing I've ever been really good at.
Allen W. Wood
Image
It is a culturally interesting (but also deeply depressing) fact that many religious claims seem to retain their emotional power for believers only if taken in ways that are intellectually unsupportable and even morally contemptible.
Allen W. Wood
Image
One rational standard of action is how well it promotes the end it seeks. Another standard is whether it aims at ends which are good. Both of these, but especially the former, depend on judgments of fact.
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
It was an important part of Mendelssohn's philosophical and religious view that the traditional rationalist proofs for God's existence should be sound an convincing. Kant thought they were not. So Kant's critique was world-shaking for Mendelssohn.
Allen W. Wood