An Ethics for Today Quotes

“it is through sentiment and sympathy, not through rationality and universalistic moral discourse, that democratic advances take place. This is why he considers books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin to have played a more important role than philosophical treatises in securing moral progress.”12”
― Richard Rorty, An Ethics for Today: Finding Common Ground Between Philosophy and Religion

“Human beings need to be made happier, but they do not need to be redeemed, for they are not degraded beings, not immaterial souls imprisoned in material bodies, not innocent souls corrupted by original sin.”
― Richard Rorty, An Ethics for Today: Finding Common Ground Between Philosophy and Religion

“Liberal theory, however, doesn’t have to demonstrate the difference. It only has to show that moral decisions on matters of public policy in a pluralist and democratic state are satisfied, or justified, by a particular political test: the “ability to gain assent from people who retain radically diverse ideas about the point and meaning of human life, about the path to private perfection.”43 Appeals to the will of God through quoting the Bible, church doctrine, and ecclesiastical authorities, fail this test for public values because”
― Richard Rorty, An Ethics for Today: Finding Common Ground Between Philosophy and Religion

“Liberal theory, however, doesn’t have to demonstrate the difference. It only has to show that moral decisions on matters of public policy in a pluralist and democratic state are satisfied, or justified, by a particular political test: the “ability to gain assent from people who retain radically diverse ideas about the point and meaning of human life, about the path to private perfection.”43 Appeals to the will of God through quoting the Bible, church doctrine, and ecclesiastical authorities, fail this test for public values because it isn’t clear how these appeals can be adjudicated.”
― Richard Rorty, An Ethics for Today: Finding Common Ground Between Philosophy and Religion