“A morality is not something above our daily existence that we bring to bear on our actions through an act of reflective effort; rather, it is a medium for conduct without which no action or utterance could take place. A morality does not somehow supervene on the primary or natural activity of desiring or instinctual gratification; it is a language within which the pursuit of any satisfaction takes place, a knowledge we are never without.”
From volume VI of the file · Book · 21st century
Themes: philosophy · virtue & character
More from Paul Franco
“Science confines itself to the measurable or quantitative aspect of things and excludes what is not measurable, individual, or unique. History deals with the individual and the unique, but it is abstract because it postulates an objective series of facts and events wholly independent of the historian and it never arrives at a complete explanation of anything. And practical thinking is condemned to an endless ‘ought to be’ that never finds rest in a stable ‘is’.
The primary conclusion that follows from all this is that scientific, historical, and practical thinking have nothing to contribute to political philosophy, nor can they criticize its conclusions.”