more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
The common run of moralists complain that man is moved by his private interest: would to heaven it were so!
Gist of Idea
Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests
Source
Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.65)
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'Oppression and Liberty' [Routledge 1955], p.64
A Reaction
Her point is that currently people have to sacrifice their own interests to communal activities which offer dubious benefits.
| 23871 | No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil] |
| 23870 | Decentralisation is only possible by co-operation between strong and weak - which is absurd [Weil] |
| 23861 | Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil] |
| 23863 | Only individual people of good will can achieve social progress [Weil] |
| 23864 | Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil] |
| 23865 | Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil] |
| 23866 | In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil] |
| 23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
| 23868 | The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil] |
| 23869 | In the least evil societies people can think, control community life, and be autonomous [Weil] |