My own view is that Kant's conception of the duality of the good (morality and happiness, the good of our person and… — Allen W. Wood Conception Copy Share Image
Fichte takes an I or free will to be not a thing or being but an act which is not undetermined but… — Allen W. Wood Determined Copy Share Image
Since the Enlightenment, popular religion has rejected the Enlightenment path and transformed itself into a bastion of resistance against reason. — Allen W. Wood Buddhism Copy Share Image
Kant takes a free will to be a being or substance with the power to cause a state of the world (or… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
I think it is clear that what we ought to do has to be independent of our decisions about what to do,… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Kant can provide, and has provided, a good model for philosophers to think about the relation of metaphysics to science and scientific… — 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 Acting Copy Share Image
The problem is that many who reject Marx do not read him, or read him only by bringing prejudices to their reading… — Allen W. Wood Prejudice 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
In fact people do not know enough about themselves and what is good for them to form a sufficiently definite conception of… — Allen W. Wood Conception Copy Share Image
Not only in order to act morally, but even to formulate theoretical questions, devise experiments, choose which ones to perform and what… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Those who see Smith as a defender of capitalism - as it existed in Marx's day, or as it exists today -… — Allen W. Wood Capitalism Copy Share Image
I don't think Kant's theory looks bad to people except insofar as they have misunderstood it (for instance, as heartless and ironheaded,… — Allen W. Wood Absurd 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 Action Copy Share Image
We cannot predict the effects of our actions, especially our collective actions over generations or centuries, to use instrumental reasoning toward these… — Allen W. Wood Action Copy Share Image
When Marx, in the Theses on Feuerbach, says that only idealism up to now has understood the active side of material Praxis,… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Our decisions need not be seen as resting on procedures that are merely instrumental in making judgments that are reliably truth-tracking. The… — Allen W. Wood Action 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 Aesthetic Copy Share Image
Kant's aim was to develop a religion within the boundaries of mere reason (that is, reason unaided by special empirical revelation) and… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
There is a very common, though also very silly, picture of Kant according to which as empirical beings we are not free… — Allen W. Wood Choices Copy Share Image
If we decide rightly what to do, or use a correct procedure for making such decisions, that has to be because the… — Allen W. Wood Apprehension 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
In the mid-1960s, as hard to believe as it may be now, choosing to go into academic philosophy was not an imprudent… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
We can establish empirical criteria for free actions, and investigate human actions on the presupposition we are free. — Allen W. Wood Action Copy Share Image
Kant does not regard freedom as an item of faith because it is too basic to our agency to be related to… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
I don't think Kant's approach to religion is any longer viable in its original form. But that does not mean it is… — Allen W. Wood Approach Copy Share Image
As Kant says, the contribution of any common laborer would be greater than that of the greatest philosopher unless the philosopher makes… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
It is both theoretically mistaken and morally wrong to regard others as objects of investigation rather than partners in free rational communication. — Allen W. Wood Communication Copy Share Image
Those who employ their modest talents as best they can do make a contribution to a better human future. — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Fichte would identify all states of our minds with states of our body - perhaps not merely of our brain, but the… — Allen W. Wood Acting 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
We can treat human responses to cognitions as involving law-like connections grounded on free choices which show themselves in our character. — Allen W. Wood Character Copy Share Image
I think the contribution people make is not proportionate to their fame or success. In fact, I think the relation is often… — Allen W. Wood Contribution 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 Books 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 Action Copy Share Image
Marx's writings still have something to teach us about capitalism. They have little or nothing to teach us about any alternatives to… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
I do not know how much my own work has achieved, and I must not pretend it has done more than it… — Allen W. Wood Copy Share Image
Many who are committed to reason and science have turned against religion altogether and treat it with fear and contempt. — Allen W. Wood Against religion Copy Share Image
We can never prove that we are free or integrate our freedom in any way into our objective conception of the causal… — Allen W. Wood Conception Copy Share Image
