In any matter of moral importance, our first task, before we plunge ahead and decide what to do, is to figure out… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Not only our moral life, but even our use of theoretical reason - on which we rely in rationally inquiring into nature… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
The moral law is simply the way we think our own freedom as self-determination. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
I think Fichte did take it further than Kant by arguing that we can regard the moral law as objectively valid only… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant did think he had a moral route back to rational faith in God, for those who need it, and he thought… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
It is often difficult to know about one's own era which philosophers in it will be remembered as the most important ones,… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Our procedures of deliberation are not ways of finding out independent moral truths but instead ways of "constructing" these truths, in the… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant says that we may regard ourselves as legislator of the moral law, and consider ourselves as its author, but not that… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
The problem I see with utilitarianism, or any form of consequentialism, is not that it gets the wrong answers to moral questions.… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant thinks that a free will is a will under moral laws and that freedom and the moral law are distinct thoughts… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
There is no author or legislator of the moral law. It is simply valid in itself in the nature or essence of… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
For the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
It is rational to choose the right means to your ends to develop very elegant abstract formal theories of rational choice, and… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant's description of most ethical duties reads more like a description of moral virtues and vices. Once we see this, we see… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant regards the universalizability test for maxims as focused on a very special sort of situation: one where the agent is tempted… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
When people think that moral problems can be solved by some simple strategy of calculation, that sets them up for ghastly overreaching.… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Some of Kant's particular moral opinions, either because he shared the prejudices of his time, or because of his own personal crotchets,… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
I think that both Mill and Sidgwick are great and admirable philosophers, from whom we still have a lot to learn. I… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
If being "iron headed" is to be lacking such feelings, then Kant's position is that an ironheaded person could not be a… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Both Kant and Fichte thought of traditions of revealed religion as ways of symbolically (that is, with aesthetic emotional power) thinking about… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
In my acquaintance with John Rawls, I found him to be a simple and honest man, who just by chance also happened… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share 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… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
No theory about our bodies as mere objects of observation and calculation (as distinct from partners in communicative interaction, assumed to be free) can… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's Groundwork); second,… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free action and… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
Kant certainly was sympathetic with the metaphysical tradition of rational theology that he criticized. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
That Hegel's theory is derivative from Fichte's does not prevent it from being strikingly original and of independent value. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
It is sad to witness the persistence in our society of the racism and xenophobia that seems to be a permanent part of our… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
It is rational to choose the right means to your ends to develop very elegant abstract formal theories of rational choice, and then turn… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
We can never prove that we are free or integrate our freedom in any way into our objective conception of the causal order of… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
Kant regards the universalizability test for maxims as focused on a very special sort of situation: one where the agent is tempted to make… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
My own view is that Kant's conception of the duality of the good (morality and happiness, the good of our person and the good… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
It is actually a nice question how far Descartes himself endorses the monological and metaphysically dualistic theory of mind associated with his name and… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
In fact people do not know enough about themselves and what is good for them to form a sufficiently definite conception of the general… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
Empiricist philosophy always tends to be anti-philosophy (and is often proud of it). — Allen W. Wood Copy Share
