Philosopher's Humour 3

Nuffield Political Theory Seminar 7/11/05

1. We can’t compare cardinal utilities. It’s like saying ‘what if we were all dragons?’ We’re not!

An applied ethics class on drugs in sport 9/11/05

1. “I don’t know what sport is” – Julian Savulescu, Professor of Applied Ethics

Political Theory Graduate Workshop 10/11/05

1. [After a clarification] “That’s fine. I can’t work out if I agree with it or not”

2. “I can hardly think of a theory of justice that doesn’t have at least one perverse implication”

Law and the State 11/11/05

1 “...and the rest, as they say, is a cliché”

2. Raz’s account is just what it would be for something to be objectively legitimate. He could turn round and say ‘I visited the world for the first time yesterday, and nothing lives up to this’. After all, that’s an empirical question – and would you trust a legal philosopher to give you advice on that? – Prof John Gardner

3. There are billions of people who aren’t lawyers, as unlikely as that seems to us.