Clergyman's

We do not wish to “judge” or assess out surrounding merely as a kind of expressive activity carelessly projected onto the world, but we wish to evaluate the world “correctly,” i.e., in according with that it truly is, and the desire to know is directed at determining what the world truly is.
- Raymond Geuss

One obvious way to specify what it is that is “due” to someone is to appeal to existing legal codes, but what they will prescribe will vary enormously from one time and place to another. A second account of justice might appeal to some notion of merit or desert. The third approach is Aristotle’s “general” conception, which simply identified “justice” with the sum of all the virtues and excellences. A fourth conception of justice is the idea that justice is in some way to be connected to equality of shares, resources, or outcomes. Finally there is the idea of fairness or impartiality of procedure. One might think that Rawls’s view derives some of its apparent plausibility because of a gradual slide between the various senses of “justice.” People start from a vague intuition that justice as a “general” concept is extremely important for the proper functioning of a society; they then find it easy to shift from this to a particular conception that connects “justice” with fairness of procedure and equality.
- Raymond Geuss

The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.
- Raymond Geuss

The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.
- Raymond Geuss

The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.
- Raymond Geuss

The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.
- Raymond Geuss

Neither the good nor the true is self-realizing, so it is not generally a sufficient explanation of why people believe that X that X is true, or of why people do Y that Y is good.
- Raymond Geuss

Neither the good nor the true is self-realizing, so it is not generally a sufficient explanation of why people believe that X that X is true, or of why people do Y that Y is good.
- Raymond Geuss

Neither the good nor the true is self-realizing, so it is not generally a sufficient explanation of why people believe that X that X is true, or of why people do Y that Y is good.
- Raymond Geuss

When Catullus expresses his love and hate for Lesbia, he is not obviously voicing a wish to rid himself of one or the other of these two sentiments. Not all contradictions resolve into temporal change of belief or desire.
- Raymond Geuss