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Nature does not work to minimize suffering and maximize happiness. Should we thank the E. coli bacteria in our guts that help us to digest certain foods? Should we, alternatively, blame the virus that is breaking down our immune systems and
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“Dudley and Stephens’s main holding, about the need to defend individual rights in the face of utilitarian calculations, is an important moral and legal touchstone. Dictators have, throughout history, sought to justify atrocities through hedonic calculus. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin insisted that their concentration camps, planned starvations, and other forms of mass murder were a step on the way toward building a better world. There will always be tyrants who argue that the dead bodies piling up will promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Dudley and Stephens represents a firm rebuke”
― Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
― Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
“The Nazis put party sympathizers in high-ranking positions and removed many museum personnel, especially those of Jewish origin, as well as works associated with what they believed to be a decadent avant-gardism (what Hitler called “degenerate art”).14 The Nazi Party destroyed (or secretly added to their personal collections) scores of modern artworks from Lippmann’s Kupferstichkabinett, especially German Expressionist prints and drawings.15 All told, the regime removed some 16,000 pieces of art from German collections, including 64 paintings, 26 sculptures, and 326 drawings from Berlin’s National Gallery.16”
― Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
― Botticelli's Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
“Instead of the moral clarity of a prohibition against murder, it allowed people to make their own decisions about whether and when it might be right to kill someone.”
― Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
― Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
“Justice is never vague,” said Morland. “The law only makes it seem that way. And as for this man . . .”
― The Wolf in Winter
― The Wolf in Winter
“The analogy was still used in the eighteenth century. In a discussion of curiosity in his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), David Hume wrote that ‘there cannot be two passions more nearly resembling each other, than those of hunting and philosophy, whatever disproportion may at first sight appear betwixt them’. Both, he said, require attention and dexterity if they are to overcome the inherent difficulties and uncertainties. And he perceptively notes that for these pursuits to excite feelings of passion and satisfaction they must have apparent utility, even if it is only a convenient fiction. The rich man does not need personally to go hunting for his evening meal, yet he finds pleasure in shooting partridges and pheasants that he will not feel by bagging crows and magpies.”
― Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything
― Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything
Mark’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mark’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
750 books
|
34 friends
237 books
|
4 friends
0 books
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6 friends
62 books
|
29 friends
64 books
|
88 friends
1 book
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21 friends
0 books
|
8 friends
1,140 books
|
228 friends
More friends…
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