“Most of what we think of as distinctively human has occurred in the last 10,000 years in the Holocene - a period in which the Earth was abnormally quiet.” ThinkingYearsHumansEarthLastsPeriodsQuiet Author:Dale Jamieson
“We think of history as another specialization, like philosophy of language, rather than as something that informs everything we do and think.” ThinkingPhilosophyLanguageSpecialization Author:Dale Jamieson
“Is it in the interests of Britain to leave or remain in the EU? As we saw in the referendum, there are different Britains and they see their interests in different ways. For a lot of everyday blokes the EU affected their sense of identity in ways they disliked, and they were right in thinking that the EU didn't return much to them by way of economic benefits.” ThinkingWayDifferentInterestSawsEconomicIdentityReturnBenefitsEverydayDifferent WaysBritainAffectedBlokesReferendums Author:Dale Jamieson
“Citizens often think of a state's interests in terms of the promotion of ideals such as democracy, a particular way of life, or other values which they endorse or see as part of their historical continuity and identity. In this domain as in others values are not fixed, and so a state's interests are dynamic and in a constant state of negotiation and construction.” ThinkingWayStatesValuesTermInterestDemocracyIdentityParticularCitizensIdealsConstantHistoricalFixedConstructionNegotiationDomainPromotionContinuity Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate scientists think of nothing but climate and then express their concerns in terms of constructs such as global mean surface temperature. But we live in a world in which all sorts of change is happening all the time, and the only way to understand what climate change will bring is to tell stories about how it manifests in people's lives.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayMeanStoriesTermHappeningsConcernScientistClimateClimate ChangeSurfaceConstructsTemperature Author:Dale Jamieson
“Environmental problems provoke challenges about what kind of world we want, how important we think it is if something is brought about by human action or by brute nature, what we think of the value of human life compared to that of other living things.” IfsThinkingWorldWantHumansKindImportantProblemActionValuesChallengesEnvironmentalHuman LifeProvokingLiving ThingsBrutesHuman ActionsEnvironmental ProblemsValue Of Human Life Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think that by the middle of this century people will still be eating meat (though less), and their meat will mostly be produced in factories through synthetic processes, cell cultures, and so on.” PeopleThinkingStillsCultureProcessMiddleCenturyEatingCellsMeatFactoriesSyntheticEating Meat Author:Dale Jamieson
“The idea that we would raise billions of sentient animals, treat them horribly, pollute our waterways with their waste, compromise the effectiveness of our antibiotics so that they grow faster, and then slaughter them with little regard to their suffering so that we can feed off their corpses, will seem to most people unthinkably cruel and barbarous - sort of in the way that we think of medieval punishments, or Europeans today think of the death penalty.” PeopleThinkingWayLittlesIdeasSeemsTodaySufferingGrowsAnimalWasteTreatsRegardRaisesBillionsPunishmentCompromiseFasterPenaltiesDeath PenaltyCorpsesEffectivenessMedievalSlaughterThink Of MeAntibiotics Author:Dale Jamieson
“Kantians are saddled with absolutist views, Aristotelians are accused of vagueness, and there is almost no horror to which Consequentialists are innocent of, according to some critics. While all these families of views have been victimized in these ways, Consequentialists have gotten the worst of it. I think this may have something to do with the fact that Kant and Aristotle are acknowledged to be great philosophers, and we tend to read the greats sympathetically, while Consequentialism is a family of views not rooted in the work of a single great man to whom this kind of deference is owed.” ThinkingMenWayKindMayHas BeensFactsViewsWorstHorrorCriticsPhilosopherInnocentGreat MenRootedAccusedDeferenceVaguenessGreat PhilosophersConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“It's obvious that there are vast variety of consequentialist views, depending on what we think goodness consists in, what our notion of consequence is, and what level (or levels) of human action we think the principle should be applied.” ThinkingShouldHumansActionLevelsViewsPrinciplesGoodnessConsequenceNotionObviousVarietyHuman Actions Author:Dale Jamieson
“Some philosophers think that the idea of a consequentialist virtue theory is strange, but the real strength of consequentialism is that it can emulate the requirements of other moral theories when it is the case that acting on those theories would improve the world.” ThinkingWorldIdeasRealActingMoralCasesVirtueStrangeTheoryPhilosopherRequirementsEmulateReal StrengthConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“Since for me moral demands necessarily flow from human psychology, I don't think we can be obliged to do something that we are not motivated in any way to do. In other words, I'm an "internalist" about morality.” ThinkingWayHumansMoralPsychologyMoralityDemandFlowMotivatedObliged Author:Dale Jamieson
“Well, one measure of a good life, I think, is to be engaged in projects that one thinks are meaningful and worthwhile. So I would put the emphasis of a good life on activity, on the walk rather than the destination, and I think that most of the things that any of us do that are really valuable and really important are projects that we really shouldn't expect to be completed in our lifetime because if they could completed in our lifetime, they probably wouldn't be so important that we should devote our lives to them.” ThinkingImportantLifetimeValuableMeaningfulGood Life Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think, questions about what it means to respect nature become very important because just as in human society, for example, part of what it is for me to live a good life as a human being in a human society is to have respect for others around me. Now, that respect, to some extent, can be thought of as being grounded in the rights and interest of others but it also has to do with the stance that I take in the world and what it is that provides meaning and significance in my own life and I think there are similar ideas of respect for nature that apply as well.” ThinkingWorldMeanImportantInterestSignificanceGood LifeRespecting Others Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think the mother of all arguments against eating meat now is the climate change argument. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and when we eat meat we wipe away many of the good things that we do when we try to create greener and more sustainable practices in the rest of our lives. So if you add the concern for climate change with other concerns that were there. I think the case for vegetarianism is pretty overwhelming.” ThinkingTryingMotherPowerfulEatingConcernArgumentGood ThingsClimate ChangeGasOverwhelming Author:Dale Jamieson
“I must say that in my own mind, I think what's important is for us, as a society, to radically reduce the consumption of meat. This is more important than some fraction of us become moral saints and become vegetarians so it would be much better if we would reduce meat consumption by three quarters of each of us as an individuals would only eat one-quarter as much meat as we do now then that half of the population should become vegetarian. We should see this as a collective challenge rather than an issue about individual, moral period.” ThinkingMindImportantIndividualChallengesMoralSaintVegetarian Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophy is not a body of knowledge to impart to someone, that's why reading philosophy books isn't always the best way of learning philosophy. Philosophy is really more the process of rational engagement, rational reflection with a diversity of views and ideas and opinions and trying to sort of reason your way through to a more reflective position. I think if you look at it that way, philosophizing is to some extent some small way a part of almost everyone's lives although they don't recognize it as such and a lot of people are embarrassed about it.” PeopleThinkingTryingBookReasonPhilosophyReadingOpinionDiversityReflectionRationalEmbarrassed Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophy isn't reading Emmanuel Kant. Philosophy is about thinking hard about what the right thing to do is in a situation and approaching that kind of question in an open-minded and open-hearted way, receptive to a broad range of considerations and interests of other people and other things.” PeopleThinkingKindPhilosophyReadingInterestSituationRight ThingConsideration Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think when it comes to climate change, the single most important thing in the world is for the United States' Congress to pass an effective bill that will put a price in carbon because if it starts costing something to emit carbon, this will provide an incentive, people do act on the basis to some extent of economic incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.” PeopleThinkingWorldImportantEconomicClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“If I drive my car to the store, those carbon molecules that are emitted actually get into the atmosphere circulation systems and affect climate in a global basis. This is shocking, this is amazing! No one in the 18th Century would have believed that anything like this were at all possible and I don't think we have, as part of our common sense, morality, norms and values that are really responsive to those kinds of issues, to the kind of power that we now are able to exert over the future and over people who live very far from us.” PeopleThinkingKindValuesCommonCarMoralityCommon SenseAtmosphereNorm18th Century Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think the challenge of climate change in particular is the challenge for us to create and produce new norms for a new kind of world. And that's why I think as important as the issue of climate change is, it's even more important than it seems because if we can't evolve very quickly, new norms to deal with issues like climate change, we're not going to be able to survive in the kind of world we've created. So I think, really, the whole nature of democracy, of governance, of global community and of solving the kinds of problems of the 21st Century are really at stake.” ThinkingWorldKindImportantProblemCommunityChallengesDemocracyClimate ChangeEvolve21st CenturyNorm Author:Dale Jamieson
