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The Straussian Moment
gwern.netThis is really the form that the dilemma takes. It is not solely a question of keeping the body alive; it is rather how not to be killed. Not to be killed becomes the great end, and morality takes its meaning from that center. Until that center is shifted, nothing real can be accomplished. It is the uncanny and perhaps unwitting recognition of this
... See moreHoward Thurman • Jesus and the Disinherited

There is one overmastering problem that the socially and politically disinherited always face: Under what terms is survival possible?
Howard Thurman • Jesus and the Disinherited
We think that human beings, at least in ethical theory, all have equal rights, and that justice involves equality; Aristotle thinks that justice involves, not equality, but right proportion, which is only sometimes equality
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy

Holmes, however, has an idea. “Of course, this blood belongs to a second individual—presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed,” he tells the two policemen. “It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year ’34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?” Gregson confesses that he does not. “Read i
... See moreMaria Konnikova • Mastermind
The first thing to understand is that the public peace—the sidewalk and street peace—of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves. In some city areas—olde
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