Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy Quotes

“Hume's skepticism in morals does not arise from his being struck by
the diversity of the moral judgments of mankind. As I have indicated, he thinks that people more or less naturally agree in their moral judgments and count the same qualities of character as virtues and vices; it is rather the enthusiasms of religion and superstition that lead to differences, not to mention the corruptions of political power.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“Luther and Calvin were as dogmatic and intolerant as the Church had been. For those who had to decide whether to become Protestant or to remain Catholic, it was a terrible time. For once the original religion fragments, which religion then leads to salvation?”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“A gloomy, harebrained enthusiast, after his death may have a place in the calendar; but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself" (E:II:27o).”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“moral order arises in some way from human nature itself and from the requirements of our living together in society.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“the radical side of Protestantism, with its idea of the priesthood of all believers and the denial of an ecclesiastical authority interposed between God and the faithful. This view says that
moral principles and precepts are accessible to normal reasonable persons generally-various”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“Hume does not, then, defend his view by using his reason: it is rather his happy acceptance of the upshot of the balance between his philosophical reflections and the psychological propensities of his nature. This underlying attitude guides his life and regulates his outlook on society and the world. And it is this attitude that leads me to refer to his view as a fideism of nature. (See T:179, 183, 184, 187.)”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“Hence Hume's famous provocative remark: "Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“Whereas Hume's normative skepticism is moderate: it is part of his psychological naturalism that it is not in our power to control our beliefs by acts of mind and will, for our beliefs are causally determined largely by other forces in our nature. He urges us to try to suspend our beliefs only when they go beyond those generated by the natural propensities of what he calls custom and imagination (custom here is often a stand-in for the laws of association of ideas).”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“Finally, moral philosophy was always the exercise of free, disciplined reason alone. It was not based on religion, much less on revelation, since civic religion did not offer a rival to it. In seeking moral ideals more suited than those of the Homeric age to the society and culture of fifth-century Athens, Greek moral philosophy from the beginning stood more or less by itself.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“It is true that in the classical world the irreligious and the atheist were feared and thought dangerous when their rejection of civic pieties was openly flaunted. This was because the Greeks thought such conduct showed that they were untrustworthy and not reliable civic friends on whom one could count. People who made fun of the gods invited rejection, but this was a matter not so much of their unbelief as such as of their manifest unwillingness to participate in shared civic practice.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

“So, to conclude, we say: the ancients asked about the most rational way to true happiness, or the highest good, and they inquired about how virtuous conduct and the virtues as aspects of character-the virtues of courage and temperance, wisdom and justice, which are themselves good--are related to that highest good, whether as means, or as constituents, or both. Whereas the moderns asked primarily, or at least in the first instance, about what they saw as authoritative prescriptions of right reason, and the rights, duties, and obligations to which these prescriptions of reason gave rise. Only afterward did their attention turn to the goods these prescriptions permitted us to pursue and to cherish.”
― John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy