"Human courtship has some wild extremes. At one end of the spectrum, there is harassment, pestering, blackmail, and an abuse of institutional power, which its targets rightly fear and loathe. At the other end is love, which as Nietzsche said, is beyond good and evil and always deserves our respect and compassion even when it is doomed or destructive. In the wide middle of the spectrum are all the ambiguous and tragi-comic goings-on of our species."
About Catherine Wilson
Catherine Wilson — Life and Legacy
Catherine Wilson is a distinguished philosopher whose work primarily focuses on ethics and human rights. She is notable for her exploration of how concepts of truth and freedom intersect, particularly in the context of moral philosophy. Wilson argues that understanding freedom requires a deep engagement with ethical principles, as seen in her assertion that 'freedom is the absence of coercion.' This perspective challenges conventional notions of autonomy by insisting that true freedom cannot exist without ethical considerations. Her quotes often reflect a commitment to the idea that truth is not just an abstract concept but is fundamentally linked to human experiences and ethical responsibilities. For instance, her view that truth must be understood within the framework of individual rights highlights her belief in the importance of personal dignity in ethical discussions. By advocating for a nuanced understanding of these themes, Wilson has significantly influenced contemporary debates on morality and human rights. Today, her insights remain relevant as they encourage deeper reflection on the nature of freedom and the ethical implications of our choices. Wilson's work invites readers to consider how their understanding of truth can shape their actions and contribute to a more just society.
Quote collection
Catherine Wilson quotes (page 1 of 3)
56 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Maybe we will get to this point and reach a decision one way or the other with 'Human cloning is acceptable,' but I doubt that it is ever going to happen for 'It is morally permissible to eat shrimp' or with the general formula 'Adultery is wrong,' whose intended extension is again very unclear."
"Epicureanism did inspire libertine culture in isolated sects, but Epicurus himself rejected an ethics of sensory indulgence, and he would have disowned latter-day 'Epicureanism' as a fussy, expensive, unphilosophical approach to eating and drinking."
"The moves to contractualism and utilitarianism required some extra ingredients besides mortalism, the denial that God is in charge of the world, and the doctrine that physical and psychological pain are the greatest evils."
"The Epicureans denied that the gods had created the world and also denied that they played any role in it."
"About 70% of what I've written about is centered on the clashes and conformities between the emerging life and physical sciences and older metaphysical frameworks in the 17th and 18th centuries. The other 30% consists of one-off essays or researches into other intriguing contemporary topics such as visual experience, aesthetics, social justice issues, and the epistemology of moral knowledge."
"The higher the coefficient of inequality (Gini coefficient) in a society, the worse things tend to be for those at the bottom."
"In the old systems, hierarchies emanate power from above to below through forms of line management and are ideologically supported by cosmologies and theologies featuring celestial rulers and their deputies - the 'rule of the best.'"
"We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We discussed it for centuries in metaphysical, economic, biological, and philosophical terms; we listened to all the arguments pro and con, we read all the testimonies of slaves and witnesses, and we decided. Though this 'we" is not everybody on earth, or even most people, who've never thought about slavery much."
"We are now returning to the 18th century empirical approach with the new interest in the evolutionary basis of ethics, with 'experimental' moral philosophy and moral psychology. As a result, we understand better why moral formulas are experienced as ineluctable commands, even if there is no commander and even if the notion of an inescapable obligation is just superstition. So moral philosophy has made huge progress."
"You can find many philosophy papers on the themes of 'love' and 'friendship,' most of which are cheerful and somewhat anodyne; you don't find many on the loss of friends, relatives, and lovers from death or alienation, though it happens all the time."
"In Western Europe and North America some things are better than they were - at least relative to their moral nadirs - such as labour legislation, the opening of the professions to women, intolerance for domestic violence, but so much is still morally unacceptable - the weapons trade, cruel and unusual punishment, economic parasitism."
"Moral theory develops from the divine command theory of medieval Christian philosophy, mixed up with a bit of ancient pagan virtue theory, to the purely secular moral sentiment and interpersonal reaction theories of Smith and Hume, to Kant's attempt to restore command theory but with something supersensible in the individual rather than God as the source of authority."
"There's Hobbes, who understood in the 1640s that the sovereign is not an appointee of God, or even a figure of superior virtue and wisdom, but just a functional device whose role is to keep people from hurting and killing each other."
"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."
"Epicurus thought of justice as an agreement to prevent people harming and being harmed."
"Atomism had no absolute 'above' and 'below' and no such rulers, so favoured the undersranding of justice as an agreement amongst equals."
"There's nothing a priori good about equality. One person has three televisions, the other has two, so what?"
"People should be able to develop their abilities and interests and have access to such goods as friendship, artistry, and nature and a political voice. It's possible to be poor and yet have all this, but in a polarized society, and one where culture and adventure have been thoroughly monetised, it is a lot more difficult."
"Gentlemanly, principled, helpful behaviour by older men vis-a-vis young women goes unnoticed, but it deserves real moral credit, and we could use more first-person testimony from the beneficiaries and practitioners about that too."