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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

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Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
State
Free
Kant
Power
Spontaneously
States
Substance
Whole
Series
World
Cause
Takes
Causes

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

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When consequentialist theories are developed in terms of an equally shallow psychology of the good - such as a crude form of hedonism - the results can sometimes strike sensible people as revolting and inhuman. People can be reduced to simple repositories of positive or negative sensory states, and their humanity is lost sight of entirely.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant does represents a distinctively modern view of the human condition in contrast to that of ancient high culture, found in ancient Greek ethics and also in ancient Chinese ethics.
Allen W. Wood
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Notice that tearing oneself out of the insensible state is the opposite of remaining in it the man who is beneficent from duty nevertheless acts with feelings, if not with empirical inclinations.
Allen W. Wood
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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
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There is a lot in Adam Smith that reflects the insights of Rousseau and anticipates those of Marx.
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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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
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Freedom is a permanent problem for us, both unavoidable and insoluble.
Allen W. Wood
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I wish that our culture could retain the symbolism and emotional power of traditional religion while combining it with reason and science and using the combination to enhance our humanity rather than impoverishing it by choosing the one side or the other.
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
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We usually can't know how, and we probably should not even ask, how our lives contribute to a better world.
Allen W. Wood
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Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.
Allen W. Wood
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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
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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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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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If being iron headed is to be lacking such feelings, then Kant's position is that an ironheaded person could not be a moral agent because such a person would not be rational.
Allen W. Wood
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What I most fear now is that within a century or so there may not be any human future at all.
Allen W. Wood
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We can't coherently deny, or even decline to affirm, that we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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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
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As Kant says, the contribution of any common laborer would be greater than that of the greatest philosopher unless the philosopher makes some contribution to establishing the rights of humanity.
Allen W. Wood