Epicurus was not at all interested in what we would call the problems of mass society, and he thought civic politics was just trouble and to be avoided by the wise. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
We use and need to use both systems in complex political societies, and we oscillate in our commitments, because both oligarchy and rule by the will of masses have their bad points, as the ancient philosophers all knew. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
A moral rule is essentially 'advantage-reducing.' It prohibits you doing something you could do that would serve your interests at someone else's expense. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
Atomism had no absolute 'above' and 'below' and no such rulers, so favoured the undersranding of justice as an agreement amongst equals. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
We have to gamble, and sometimes lose as George Ainslie argues; this keeps the appetite for life sharp. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
There is no single test or formula for producing moral progress anymore than there is for generating scientific truths. It is a process involving… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
Epicurus thought that friendship and conviviality, which require present attention rather than being in an alcoholic stupor, as well as trying to understand and… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
For seventeenth-century astronomers, the Epicurean doctrine of multiple worlds separated by void space was seen to fit with the new Copernican system in which… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
Leibniz accepted the argument that there must be indestructible simple entities if there is to be a complex world, but Epicurean morals and politics… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
I had the idea that there were secret laws of the universe that could explain the baffling human reality around me, and that philosophers… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
The higher the coefficient of inequality (Gini coefficient) in a society, the worse things tend to be for those at the bottom. — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
Moral theory develops from the divine command theory of medieval Christian philosophy, mixed up with a bit of ancient pagan virtue theory, to the… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
Human courtship has some wild extremes. At one end of the spectrum, there is harassment, pestering, blackmail, and an abuse of institutional power, which… — Catherine Wilson Copy Share Image
