Elizabeth S. Anderson Quotes

United States, Philosopher
December 5, 1959

Elizabeth Secor Anderson is an American philosopher. She is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan and is a notable American philosopher specializing in moral and political philosophy. Anderson is currently the chair of the University of Michigan's Department of Philosophy.

The definition of deism is the philosophical idea of God as a first cause of the universe, who lays down the laws of nature and lets them run like clockwork, indifferent to the fate of the people subject to them.

Elizabeth S. Anderson
Far from being a truly independent guide to moral conducts, the…holy books are… like a Rorschach Test: which passages people choose to emphasize reflects as much as it shapes their moral character and interests.

Elizabeth S. Anderson

People continue to deploy the same justification of market society—that it would secure the personal independence of workers from arbitrary authority—long after it failed to deliver on its original aspiration. The result is a kind of political hemiagnosia: like those patients who cannot perceive one-half of their bodies, a large class of libertarian-leaning thinkers and politicians, with considerable public following, cannot perceive half of the economy: they cannot perceive the half that takes place beyond the market, after the employment contract is accepted.

Elizabeth S. Anderson
The fundamental religious objection to the theory of evolution is not scientific but moral. Fundamentalists believe that evolutionary theory must be opposed because it leads to rampant immorality, on both the personal and political scales. The basic cause of this immorality is atheism.

Elizabeth S. Anderson
We are told that our choice is between free markets and state control, when most adults live their working lives under a third thing entirely: private government.

Elizabeth S. Anderson