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We can be certain that, if there are conflicting views in different cultures, some of these views must be false. This may help us to transcend our own narrow cultural horizon.

Torbjorn Tannsjo

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Torbjorn Tannsjo
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More quotes by Torbjorn Tannsjo

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We own ourselves. This is the core of a libertarian theory of rights. But on this theory, while we are at liberty to kill ourselves (regardless of the consequences of others), we are not allowed to kill others, not even if this means that there we be fewer murders in the future, totally speaking.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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It is obvious, I think, that national democracy withers. This has to do with globalisation.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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The US two party system is very different, of course. Here the people decides about who should rule them, but it is not reasonable to claim that the people rules itself through the political institutions. In comparison, I find that the standard European system is better, also as a model for global democracy.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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You should not take the content of your intuitive response as evidence until you have submitted your psychological reaction to what I call cognitive psychotherapy. You should do what you can to learn as much as possible about the origin of your reaction.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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Normative ethics, pursued as a free, systematic, and critical attempt to find moral truth, regardless of religious and other authorities, is a rather new adventure. Let's wait and see what will happen!
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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We should not accept moral nihilism unless we find strong arguments to do so.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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If two norms conflict, if they are mutually inconsistent, then at least one of them must be false.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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People in different cultures think very differently about abortion. Abortion is not seen as a moral problem for example in Sweden or Russia, but it is seen as a difficult moral problem in China and in the USA.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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The democratic thought is based on that 'ordinary people' are suitable to rule themselves.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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Being a moral realist I see normative ethics as a search of the truth about our obligations and a search of explanation the idea is that moral principles can help us to a moral explanation of our particular obligations.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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The Chinese are generally speaking much more reluctant than Westerners to killing as a means to the rescue of lives.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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I do believe that what I have called populist democracy is to be preferred to what I have called elitist democracy.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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It is hard to tell if capital punishment has such an effect. And even if, in some contexts it has (such as in the American South with a very high incidence of murder), this effect may very well go away if a decent welfare state was replaced for the existing social order.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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One way of submitting your moral intuitions in relation to some issue to cognitive therapy is to learn more about how people in other cultures think about it.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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To kill or not to kill, that was the question that haunted me.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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You are only allowed to treat the content of your intuition as evidence if the intuition stays after you have exposed it to cognitive psychotherapy in some cases you have to reject it even if it does indeed stay.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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When I was in my late teens I was already interested in philosophy.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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What we need is legislation, not negotiation, for the entire globe.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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Moral nihilism comes with a price we can now see.
Torbjorn Tannsjo
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It is obvious that humanity faces existential threats of a global nature. They are global in the sense that is not possible to deal with them unless we resort to global governance.
Torbjorn Tannsjo