Torbjorn Tannsjo famous quotes
50 minutes ago
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The perspective that many today are beginning to see as fully realistic is that democracy in our country, and in our part of the world, will suffer the same fate as the Swedish monarchy did before. The democracy is beeing emptied of all power political content at the same time as the forms remain, treated with reverence and preservasion.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
The democratic thought is based on that 'ordinary people' are suitable to rule themselves.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
Utilitarianism condones killing of innocent human beings, even murder, if it makes the world a better place.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
These theories, deontology, the moral rights theory, and utilitarianism, contradict one another. Moreover, they give conflicting (inconsistent) recommendations. It is hence not possible to hold them together, in a pursuit of moral truth.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
Once we realise that utilitarianism comes with the idea of blameworthy rightdoing (such as when you push a big man onto the tracks in order to save five lives) and blameless wrongdoing (such as when you don't push a big man onto the tracks in order to save five lives), then utilitarianism all of a sudden appears to give the right answers.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
It is of note that for a long time moral nihilism was a kind of unquestioned default position in analytic moral philosophy.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
It is obvious that humanity faces existential threats of a global nature. They are global in the sense that is not possible to deal with them unless we resort to global governance.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
It is quite possible that we will soon come to live under some sort of global despotism, enlightened or not. This is not a nice prospect. And there is only one way of avoiding that this happens: to establish a global democracy. And it is not too late to strive for such a democracy, of a straightforward populist nature, where people on the globe elect a world parliament, which in turn elects a world government.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
Global governance need not take a democratic form.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
There are some particular moral truths that I believe we have access to (such as the one not to inflict pain on a sentient being for no reason).
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
What we need is legislation, not negotiation, for the entire globe.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
To kill or not to kill, that was the question that haunted me.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
My conjecture is that most people will refuse to let go, even when their lives have become boring (at least in comparisons with possible lives lived by new generations). If this happens, there will eventually be no room for new generations. A kind of collective irrationality will lead to a bleak life for the last generation that decides to stay around. Unless we put and end to the human race (through global warming, for example), before this happens, individual egoism will block the path to a better world.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
I have now come to the conclusion (roughly) that capital punishment is defensible, if it can be shown to have a deterrent effect on murder. In that case, a few executions save not only some people from being murdered but also some people from becoming murders.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
The Chinese are generally speaking much more reluctant than Westerners to killing as a means to the rescue of lives.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
It is hard to tell if capital punishment has such an effect. And even if, in some contexts it has (such as in the American South with a very high incidence of murder), this effect may very well go away if a decent welfare state was replaced for the existing social order.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
The possibility to go on indefinitely with our lives may become a reality and it will present us with a temptation.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
I have been brought up in a culture where capital punishment is indeed anathema. I have always thought of myself as a principled opponent to capital punishment. However, when thinking about how the topic is handled in other cultures, in particular the American, Russian and Chinese ones, I have realised that my own tack on the issue was utterly superficial.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
One way of submitting your moral intuitions in relation to some issue to cognitive therapy is to learn more about how people in other cultures think about it.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
It is true that it feels very differently to enjoy a good meal, taking part in an interesting conversation, or to think of how successful your children are. Suppose we do all these things at a particular time. How happy are we at the time? We do not need to calculate the value of each such feelings on any singular scale to answer this question. We need not see our happiness at the time as a mathematical function of these items. It is rather that all these experiences, together with many other factors, causally puts us at the time at a certain level of happiness, i.e. in a certain mood.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
There comes a time where next to everyone will resort to techniques that enhance cognitive, mental including emotive, physical, and other capacities. When this has happened, if not before, the ban on doping in sport will have been lifted.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
Normative ethics, pursued as a free, systematic, and critical attempt to find moral truth, regardless of religious and other authorities, is a rather new adventure. Let's wait and see what will happen!
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
I am indeed a hedonistic utilitarian. I have defended hedonistic utilitarianism for quite a while.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
Being a moral realist I see normative ethics as a search of the truth about our obligations and a search of explanation; the idea is that moral principles can help us to a moral explanation of our particular obligations.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo -
I am now a decided non-naturalist realist. And today we may even speak of a trend towards non-naturalist moral realism.
-- Torbjorn Tannsjo
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