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Quote by André Alexis

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Fifteen Dogs

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André Alexis

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“Finally, we must believe that we are pursuing true goals - not merely effective ones. Darwinian evolution leaves no room for the true; it only leaves room for the evolutionarily beneficial. Survival of the fittest isn't a moral principle; survival itself isn't a moral proposition. If it were beneficial to us to kill babies and eat them, that would not make it moral; if it were beneficial for us to calculate 2+2=5, it would not make it true. But we care about both moral and true, and that requires a base line assumption: that we can discover the moral and true.”

ReasonWestern CivilizationMoral Purpose
Book:The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great
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“What is the colour of things in the dark?’ ‘I suppose, no colour at all.’ ‘And what of their shape? Have you any notion of it save as what could be seen or touched, or what you could collect from many seeings and touchings?’ ‘I don’t know that I have.’ ‘Then do you not see how the giant has deceived you?’ ‘Not quite clearly.’ ‘He showed you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible. That is, he showed you something that is not, but something that would be if the world were made all other than it is. but in the real world our inwards are invisible. They are not coloured shapes at all, they are feelings. The warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in, the comfort in your belly because we breakfasted well, and your hunger for the next meal—these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes that you saw in the dungeon are the lie.’ ‘But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.’ ‘ A man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly: but the giant made you believe that life is ugly.”

ReasonPhilosophyApologeticsReductionism
Author:CS Lewis
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