Dean > Dean's Quotes

“reason only perceives that which it produces after its own design;”
― Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason

“The romantic notion that all evil is a product of society has justified the release of dangerous psychopaths who promptly murdered innocent people. And the conviction that humanity could be reshaped by massive social engineering projects led to some of the greatest atrocities in history.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“Moore noted that it is sensible to ask, “This conduct is more evolutionarily successful, but is it good?” The mere fact that the question makes sense shows that evolutionary success and goodness are not the same thing.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“It is the belief that history is a preordained succession of conflicts between groups of people and that improvement in the human condition can come only from the victory of one group over the others. For the Nazis the groups were races; for the Marxists they were classes. For the Nazis the conflict was Social Darwinism; for the Marxists, it was class struggle. For the Nazis the destined victors were the Aryans; for the Marxists, they were the proletariat. The ideologies, once implemented, led to atrocities in a few steps: struggle (often a euphemism for violence) is inevitable and beneficial; certain groups of people (the non-Aryan races or the bourgeoisie) are morally inferior; improvements in human welfare depend on their subjugation or elimination.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick