Need Philosophy Help for players

[redwing00]

In my campaign, I'd like (and im sure they would like to agree as well) to think that my players and I are intelligent people. The game I run deals with pretty intense and thought provoking ideas. I have several NPC philosophers in the game that play a major role in the campaign. As of now I am having the players meet a group of barbarians. I need some links or just quotes of famous philosophers such as Nietzche (sp?), Socrates, etc. on the subject of the human nature and a natural inclination to become savages. P.S. I'm not trying to make you do my dirty work, I just can't seem to find any one the subject at hand through my searches.

These can also be from psychologists or possibly scientists.

 

[Umbra]

I just can't seem to find any one the subject at hand through my searches.

Try http://www.quotationspage.com/ Just type in some key words and...

 

[VirgilCaine]

I just changed computers, so I don't have my large library of links (and thus have no sites to offer you), but you could search a little harder, gee. Try searching for "nietzche quotes" or "famous quotes" or something.

 

[Lu Wei Fong]

"Every calling is great when greatly pursued." - Oliver Wendell Homes
"Beware the fury of a patient man." - John Dryden
"You can't say civilization isn't advancing, in every war they kill you a new way." - Will Rogers
"There are many humerous things in the world: among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages." - Mark Twain
"Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and a fork?" - Stanislans J. Lec

Good luck!

 

[Eolin]

If you're looking for summaries, try "plato.stanford.edu" ... the bestest summaries are there.

As for philosophy quotes ... try this one:
http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_philosophy.html

Or, ya know, grab any version of a history of modern philosphy or one for ancient -- should have everything, though it'll be hard to find the pearls from the dirt.

Or, be more specific and maybe I'll have something in my brain that'll work. Like this, just to be pretentious, here's some Hillary Putnam... :
If i were a brain in a vat (BIV), i could not say i am a BIV.
I can say i am a BIV.

Thus, I am not a BIV.

Silly BIV arguments. Go out and have fun with the links. And again, if you want anything specific, I (and probably others) can help.

 

[Cake Mage]

Some Socrates, sort of

Well sort of close to what your talking about. On justice and and the nature of justice.

From The Rupblic by Plato; Gluacon's answer to what he says is the nature and orign of justice. This is not Socrates's idea; in fact he goes on after Gluacon finishes tearing his answer apart:

"What people say is that to do wrong is, in itself, a desirable thing; on the othe hand, it is not at all desirable to suffer wrong, and the harm to the sufferer outweighs the advatage to the doer. Consequently, when men have had a taste of both, those who have not the power to seize the advatage and esacape the harm decide that they would be better offif they made a compact neither to do wrong nor to suffer it. Hence they begin to make laws and covenants with one another; and whatever the law prescribes, they call lawful and right."

I'll end it there but of course there is much more. So gluacon is saying that we all want to do harm to others, but since we don't like harm to come to us, we make agreements with each other to not do harm to each other and that is how civilazation started. So if you want you can run that into one side of the argument. And kudos to you if you can argue and take the opposite side of that point. We haven't gotten to what Socrates says after that in Philosophy class, thats next week. I could...read ahead and find the answer, but that requires extra effort on my part, and would need enticing. as it is, and as you said, I'm sure you guys are intelligent enough to figure it out on your own. I have faith in you guys!

 

[Angcuru]

Hmm...Neitzche? I remember doing a paper on him in my seinor year of high school. Fascinating ideas, if a bit extreme. Look for a book (or a page about it) called "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

As for stuff from psychologists, I don't think they'll provide you with what you're looking for. Look up B.F. Skinner if you want a good, long long long long long and very well developed arguement on how human beings develop their personalities and habits.

And a really good quote for you:

Reason is the slave of passion. - Aristotle

Some quotes for moral psychologists:

Morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits. - Ruth Benedict

Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter or face, or real existence, which you call vice...You can never find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, toward this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not reason. - David Hume

The Good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment. - Emil Brunner

I respect deities. I do not rely on them. - Musashi Miyamoto

The achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose. - Ayn Rand

We have to ask now, "If the end does not justify the means, what does?" The answer is, obviously, "Nothing!" - Joseph Fletcher

You may not do evil that good may come. - St. Paul

The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn the agreement. These articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature. - Thomas Hobbes

The concepts of obligation, and duty--moral obligation and moral duty, that is to say--and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense of "ought", ought to be jettisoned....It would be a great improvement if, instead of "morally wrong," one always named a genus such as "untruthful", "unchaste," "unjust." - G.E.M. Anscombe

And a few other quotes:

I think, therefore I am. - Rene Descartes

All men are created equal, nothing, and have certain unalienable rights. Among them: life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. - John Locke

 

[Remus Lupin]

"Life in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short" -- Thomas Hobbes

 

[Bloodstone Press]

Maybe not quite what you are looking for, but some that might be close are:

"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger." -Neitzsche

"I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash." -Sigmund Freud

"We only half live when we only half think." -Voltaire

"The joy of killing! The joy of seeing killing done. These are traits of the human race." -Mark Twain

"Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers.
In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviours by
other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively..."
[Sigmund Freud, 1927]

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.-Seneca

 

[Belegbeth]

Reason is the slave of passion. - Aristotle

This is incorrect. The correct expression is: "Reason is the slave of the passions."
And, more importantly, this is a quote from DAVID HUME.
The view it expresses is incompatible with Aristotle's philosophy.