Moral Philosophy

Modern sociology is virtually

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Modern sociology is virtually an attempt to take up the larger program of social analysis and interpretation which was implicit in Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, but which was suppressed for a century by prevailing interest in the technique of the production of wealth. Albion Woodbury Small

I do not believe

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I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. … The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced. Albert … Read more

I would say to

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I would say to anybody who thinks that all the problems in philosophy can be translated into empirically verifiable answers – whether it be a Lawrence Krauss thinking that physics is rendering philosophy obsolete or a Sam Harris thinking that neuroscience is rendering moral philosophy obsolete – that it takes an awful lot of philosophy … Read more

God doesn’t help. I

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God doesn’t help. I think that’s a knockdown argument. I think that it really shows that whatever moral knowledge we have and whatever moral progress we make in our knowledge or whatever progress we make in our moral knowledge is not coming really from religion. It’s coming from the very hard work really of moral … Read more

All my life I’ve

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All my life I’ve been aware of the Second World War humming in the background. I was born 10 years after it was finished, and without ever seeing it. It formed my generation and the world we lived in. I played Hurricanes and Spitfires in the playground, and war films still form the basis of all my moral philosophy. All the men I’ve ever got to my feet for or called sir had been in the war.
A. A. Gill