Citas

"By Hedonism, then, I mean the doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end—good in the sense which I have tried to point out as indefinable. The doctrine that pleasure, among other things, is good as an end, is not Hedonism; and I shall not dispute its truth. Nor again is the doctrine that other things, beside pleasure, are good as means, at all inconsistent with Hedonism: the Hedonist is not bound to maintain that Pleasure alone is good, if under good he includes, as we generally do, what is good as means to an end, as well as the end itself. " (Principia ethica)

"I have said that those systems of Ethics, which I propose to call Metaphysical, are characterised by the fact that they describe the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms; and this has now to been explained as meaning that they describe it in terms of something which (they hold) does exist, but does not exist in Nature—in terms of a supersensible reality. A Metaphysical Ethics is marked by the fact that it makes the assertion: That which would be perfectly good is something which exists, but is not natural; that which has some characteristic possessed by a supersensible reality" (Principia ethica)

"To search for unity and system, at the expense of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy, however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers. And that all truths about the Universe possess to one another all the various relations, which may be meant by unity, can only be legitimately asserted, when we have carefully distinguished those various relations and discovered what those truths are. In particular, we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are unified in any particular manner, except in virtue of an enquiry conducted by the method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate. The study of Ethics would, no doubt, be far more simple, and its results far more systematic, if, for instance, pain were an evil of exactly the same magnitude as pleasure is a good; but we have no reason whatever to assume that the Universe is such that ethical truths must display this kind of symmetry: no argument against my conclusion, that pleasure and pain do not thus correspond, can have any weight whatever, failing a careful examination of the instances which have led me to form it." (Principia ethica)

Obras

Ética

Principia ethica

Refutación del idealismo

Ensayos éticos

El concepto de valor intrínseco

Más contenido sobre el autor en boulesis.com