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Quote by William Ernest Hocking

“Principle III: Presumptive rights are the conditions under which individual powers normally develop.”

Quote by William Ernest Hocking

Author

William Ernest Hocking

William Ernest Hocking was an American philosopher known for his contributions to moral and religious philosophy. His work had a profound impact on the philosophical community in the early 20th century, particularly in the field of moral philosophy. more

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“Nothing is more evident, I venture to think, as a result of two or three thousand years of social philosophizing, than that society must live and thrive by way of the native impulses of individual human beings.”

Thinking Way Years Humans Two Three Individual Social Human Beings Results Thousand Impulse Native Thrive Thousand Years Venture Evident

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“Without good-will, no man has any presumptive right, except the right or opportunity to change his will, so long as there is hope of it.”

Men Long Opportunity Good Will There Is Hope Opportunity To Change

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“It is right, or absolute right, that an individual should develop the powers that are in him. He may be said to have a "natural right" to become what he is capable of becoming. This is his only natural right.”

Should May Said Individual Natural Becoming Capable Absolutes

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“Wherever moral ambition exists, there right exists. And moral ambition itself must be presumed present in subconsciousness, even when the conscious self seems to reject it, so long as society has resources for bringing it into action; in much the same way that the life-saver presumes life to exist in the drowned man until he has exhausted his resources for recovering respiration.”

Men Way Long Self Seems Action Moral Ambition Conscious Resources Rejects Exhausted Recovering Respiration

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“The only thing that can set aside a law as wrong is a better law, or an idea of a better law. And the only thing that an give a law the quality of better or worse is the concrete result which it promotes or fails to promote.”

Giving Ideas Law Results Quality Failing Concrete

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“Pure community is a matter of no interest to any will; but a community which pursues a common good is of supreme interest to all wills; and what we have here said is that whatever the nature of that common good ... it must contain the development of individual powers, as a prior condition for all other goods.”

Said Matter Individual Interest Community Common Conditions Development Pure Supreme Pursue Goods Common Good Individual Power

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.”

Source: The collected works of Lysander Spooner

“No government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people.”

People Knows Government Politics Power Limits Endurance

Book:An Essay on the Trial by Jury

Source: An Essay on the Trial by Jury

“For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.”

Government Would Be Truth Crime Vices Absurd Falsehood Prohibition

Book:Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

Source: Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

“Apart from any other basis which might justify a superiority, education, as a power, raised him who possessed it over the weak, who lacked it, and the educated man counted in his circle, however large or small it was, as the mighty, the powerful, the imposing one: for he was an authority.”

Men Might Powerful Education Authority Weak Bases Raised Circles Educated Justify Possessed Superiority Imposing Educated Man

Book:The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism

Source: The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism