"It is characteristic of our age to endeavour to replace virtues by technology. That is to say, wherever possible we strive to use methods of physical or social engineering to achieve goals which our ancestors thought attainable only by the training of character. Thus, we try so far as possible to make contraception take the place of chastity, and anaesthetics to take the place of fortitude; we replace resignation by insurance policies and munificence by the Welfare State. It would be idle romanticism to deny that such techniques and institutions are often less painful and more efficient methods of achieving the goods and preventing the evils which unaided virtue once sought to achieve and avoid. But it would be an equal and opposite folly to hope that the take-over of virtue by technology may one day be complete, so that the necessity for the laborious acquisition of the capacity for rational choice by individuals can be replaced by the painless application of the fruits of scientific discovery over the whole field of human intercourse and enterprise."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Anthony John Patrick Kenny, Mental Health in Plato's Republic, in The Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Mind (1973), 26.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Social_engineering
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Social engineering
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Social engineering →
Related Quotes
"Administration is both social engineering and applied psychology. It is apparatus and mechanics, incentives and human…"
"I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think im…"
"The research needed for social practice can best be characterized as research for social management or social enginee…"
"Regarding social order, Fukuyama writes, "The systematic study of how order, and thus social capital, can emerge in s…"
"Conservatives believe in individual freedom and responsibility. Liberals believe in sacrificing individual freedom fo…"
"At first, by controlling the banking system we were able to control corporation capital. Through this, we acquired to…"
"Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idea…"
"Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a clean and disease free atmosphere in which to l…"
"Probably not more than twenty-five percent in any community are capable of doing a full days work such as they would …"
"Men ignore nature's laws in their personal lives. They crave a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in t…"