luckswallowsall

"You do what you do - in the circumstances in which you find yourself - because of the way you are. So if you're going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you're going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are - at least in certain mental respects. But you can't be ultimately responsible for the way you are (for the reasons just given). So you can't be ultimately responsible for what you do."
- Galen Strawson

"It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place."
- David Benatar

"I believe that most of us have false beliefs about our own nature, and our identity over time, and that, when we see the truth, we ought to change some of our beliefs about what we have reason to do."
- Derek Parfit

"If you put it as 'complex nervous systems' it sounds pretty deflationary. What's so special about a complex nervous system? But of course, that complex nervous system allows you to do calculus. It allows you to do astrophysics… to write poetry... to fall in love. Put under that description, when asked 'What’s so special about humans...?', I’m at a loss to know how to answer that question. If you don’t see why we’d be special… because we can do poetry [and] think philosophical thoughts [and] we can think about the morality of our behavior, I’m not sure what kind of answer could possibly satisfy you at that point.
...I could pose the same kinds of questions of you... So God says, 'You are guys are really, really special.' How does his saying it make us special? 'But you see, he gave us a soul.' How does our having a soul make us special? Whatever answer you give, you could always say… 'What’s so special about that?”"
- Shelly Kagan