Quotessence
Home / Authors / Rebecca Goldstein
Rebecca Goldstein

Rebecca Goldstein Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPhilosophyPeopleThinkingIfsPhilosopherAnswersWayArgumentChildrenMatterPhilosophicalProgressMoralPlatoShouldFeelsGreekHumansKindReality

Famous Rebecca Goldstein Quotes

“Everybody have equal rights to a life of full flourishing. Philosophy slowly, slowly has given us arguments saying, look, you already committed to your own life flourishing, and you're being inconsistent if you don't expand it. So philosophy often works in trying to show us that there's an inner incoherence in our points of view. We're all committed to one thing when it comes to us and our own kind, but we're not willing to expand it and we're guilty of inconsistency.”

IfsTryingLooksKindPhilosophyShowsGivenViewsRightsOne ThingWillingEqualArgumentCommittedPoint Of ViewGuiltyEqual RightsInconsistentFlourishingInconsistencyIncoherence
Author:Rebecca Goldstein
Create image

“Does God have a reason for wanting us to be charitable, to take care of those who can't take care of themselves? Either God does or God doesn't, it's just logic. If God has a reason then there is a reason independent of God and whatever God's reason is we should figure it out for ourselves. There is a reason and God doesn't really ground morality at all. God wants us to give charity because it's the right thing to do.”

IfsWantGivingShouldDoeReasonCareFiguresMoralityLogicIndependentCharityTake CareThings To DoRight ThingWant UCharitable
Author:Rebecca Goldstein
Create image

“If there is such a thing as philosophical progress, then why - unlike scientific progress - is it so invisible? Philosophical progress is invisible because it is incorporated into our points of view. What was torturously secured by complex argument comes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance.”

IfsForgetViewsProgressArgumentPhilosophicalComplexesObviousIntuitionPoint Of ViewInvisibleForget ItSecuredScientific Progress
Author:Rebecca Goldstein
Create image

“I don't only act out of my character; my character reacts to my actions. Each time I why, even if I'm not caught, I become a little bit more of this ugly thing: a liar. Character is always in the making, with each morally valenced action, whether right or wrong, affecting our characters, the people who we are.”

PeopleIfsLittlesCharacterActionBitsLittle BitCaughtUglyWho We AreLiarsUgly Things
Book:Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away
Create image