“I am an atheist. I don't think there's anything divine. Beautiful, impressive, awe-inspiring - sure, but not divine.” ThinkingBeautifulDivineAtheistImpressive Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Virtue is about wanting right and good things, not about being particularly good at thinking.” ThinkingVirtueGood Things Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Though we think intrinsic desires tend to be pretty stable, we do not think they imply anything like the amount of predictability in behavior that traditional virtue ethics requires for someone to have a one-word-in-English character trait such as "benevolence". Other things being equal, a person with more of a desire for other people's wellbeing will do more for other people's wellbeing, but things are almost never equal.” ThinkingCharacterDesireVirtueEqualBehaviorEthicsTraitsBenevolenceWellbeingPredictabilityBeing EqualCharacter Trait Author:Nomy Arpaly
“If I make a stupid decision but don't execute it because I'm, say, lazy, then I'm lucky, not rational. However, at other times a person acts for good reasons just as she does what she thinks she shouldn't do, not knowing that they are good reasons. Just like sometimes we are a lot less rational than we think we are, it is also true that sometimes we are a lot more rational than we think we are.” ThinkingSometimesReasonDecisionStupidLuckyRationalLazy Author:Nomy Arpaly
“When you find yourself reluctant to sit on a chair because it had unexpectedly collapsed in the past you might shake your head and think "there, I'm so irrational!". But your reluctance to sit on a probably rickety chair is not irrational - you think it's irrational because you have a false view of what irrationality is.” ThinkingPastFinding YourselfIrrationalIrrationality Author:Nomy Arpaly
“I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.” ThinkingBelieveBookFailingEvidenceArgumentRationalIrrationalRationality Author:Nomy Arpaly
“I don't think any of my desires or beliefs or other mental states are external to me. Many people will occasionally feel alienated from the motives for an action - "whatever possessed me to do that?". Note, however, that some people feel alienated from the white hairs that recently appeared on their heads - "who put them there?", they might ask the mirror - but the white hairs are still theirs. Similarly, I might feel alienated from an action or a mental state because it does not fit with my visceral self - image.” PeopleThinkingActionDesireBeliefFitMotive Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Duties concern things that are voluntary. I do think that if you have a moral duty to bring me back the book you borrowed, that implies, roughly, that your doing so depends on your wanting to do so: if you want to bring me the book, you will. This is not the case if you are stuck at some airport due to a snowstorm, far away from me. This, however, is not the same as "ought" implying a metaphysical "can".” ThinkingBookMoralDutyConcernStuckFar AwayMetaphysical Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Suppose whether or not someone tells me a lie depends only on whether he wants to, but he is morally indifferent, he doesn't care much about the truth or about me, and his self interest, which he worships, tells him to lie, and so it comes about that given his psychology, it is a forgone conclusion that he will lie to me. I think in this case he is still blameworthy, and that implies, among other things, that he did something he ought not do.” ThinkingCareLyingInterestPsychologyWorshipConclusionIndifferentSelf InterestLie To Me Author:Nomy Arpaly
“I think that if your tenure case depends on your proving what you thought was a mathematical theorem and the proposed theorem turns out to be false just before your tenure decision, and you want to get tenure very badly, there is a sense in which it's perfectly understandable and reasonable of you to wish the proposed theorem were true and provable, even if it's logically impossible for it to be.” ThinkingWishDecisionImpossibleProveMathematicalTenure Author:Nomy Arpaly
“I think it's ok to have wishes that conflict with each other - it's irrational to try to make them both come true, but not irrational simply to have them.” ThinkingTryingWishConflictIrrational Author:Nomy Arpaly