Julian Baggini Quotes

Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.

True virtue would never liken its rewards to points on a loyalty card, not because it is its own reward, but because it is not something we should practice to accrue future benefits.

Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint.

Metaphorical tone deafness is when people are unable to discern what is of value in something. I think I’m tone deaf to poetry, for instance. Despite having studied it into a second year of university, most of it just leaves me cold.

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

There have been a number of philosophers who have reveled in the dismantling of truth. I think they did so with good ethical motives, and for good philosophical reasons. I can see the sense in what they were talking about; the idea that truth is often claimed by elites in order to further certain agendas. They crowd-out alternative perspectives – particularly those of the powerless. But the undermining of truth contributed – in the weird, indirect way that philosophy contributes to the culture – to a rejection of the idea of truth as having any kind of proper meaning at all.

If you believe you are right, then you should believe that you can make the case that you’re right. This requires you to deal with serious objections properly.

The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it’s possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success.

Since Plato, we have been considering the nature of knowledge, the meaning of meaning and the status of the physical world.

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you’ve got to be asking questions all the time, you’ve also got to make sure that you’re doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers – and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it’s not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you’re only skeptical outwards you’ve got an unbalanced skepticism.

I am only me for practical purposes.

If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.