Utilitarians Quotes & Sayings

the utilitarians. They were interested only in the computer's crude and brutish ability to impose its will on the world around it. — Michael Lewis

The central paradox of motherhood is that while our children become the absolute center of our lives, they must also push us backout in the world ... But motherhood that can narrow our lives can also broaden them. It can make us focus intensely on the moment and invest heavily in the future. — Ellen Goodman

There are those who feel that meditation is unrealistic or takes them out of the world, and if that was your experience with mediation, you weren't meditating. — Frederick Lenz

Thoughts are divine. — Virginia Woolf

The Kyoto Protocol ... the first component of an authentic global governance ... — Jacques Chirac

The so-called Transcendentalists are not the only people who deal in Transcendentals. On the contrary, we seem to see that the Utilitarians,
the every-day world's people themselves, far transcend those inferior Transcendentalists by their own incomprehensible worldly maxims. — Herman Melville

What signifies the sound of words in prayer without the affection of the heart, and a sedulous application of the proper means that may naturally lead us to such an end? — Roger L'Estrange

Utilitarianism: If we Britiash were Utilitarians we would have to believe that imprisoning the innocent and torturing suspects was justified if the Home Secretary thought it a good thing for our peace of mind. — William Donaldson

Libertarian opponents of anarchy are attacking a straw man. Their arguments are usually utilitarian in nature and amount to "but anarchy won't work" or "we need the (things provided by the) state." But these attacks are confused at best, if not disingenuous. To be an anarchist does not mean you think anarchy will "work" (whatever that means); nor that you predict it will or "can" be achieved. It is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, after all. To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

Accordingly, anyone who is not an anarchist must maintain either: (a) aggression is justified; or (b) states (in particular, minimal states) do not necessarily employ aggression. — N. Stephan Kinsella

Utilitarians are often immensely conscientious people, who work for humanity and give up meat for the sake of the animals. They think this is what they morally ought to do and feel guilty if they do not live up to their own standard. They do not, and perhaps could not, ask: How useful is it that I think and feel like this? — Bernard Williams

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians. — Stephan Kinsella

The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. — Robert Trout

Effective altruists, as we have seen, need not be utilitarians, but they share a number of moral judgments with utilitarians. In particular, they agree with utilitarians that, other things being equal, we ought to do the most good we can. — Peter Singer

Go to the root of the problems of people and discover ways to save them — Sunday Adelaja

Fetches cups of caf. — Chuck Wendig