Nayef Al-Rodhan Quotes

72 Sourced Quotes

Policies that assume that human nature is a tabula rasa (clean slate) should be reviewed and revised to reflect that man has an in-built genetic code for survival with no evidence for innate morality.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Harmonious interstate relations will be guided by the paradigm of Symbiotic Realism that stresses the importance of absolute rather than relative gains.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Security, stability and prosperity will depend on the application of the multi-sum security principle that captures the multi-dimensional aspects of security and insists on the centrality of global justice for lasting security.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
There is a physical neurobiological substrate to all human knowledge, including thoughts, memories, perceptions and emotions. To this end, mental states and thought processes are physical.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Neuro-rational Physicalism is premised on the neuro-biological foundation of human nature, which implies that thoughts, perceptions or emotions correspond to a physical reaction in the brain.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Those who are outside the centres of power, because of the need for a positive and not simply a stable identity, are likely to find an independent identity appealing.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Humankind is conceived as primarily motivated by neurochemically mediated emotions resulting from genetic make-up and environmental influences, employing reason and engaging in conscious reflection only occasionally.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Much like addictive drugs, power uses ready-made reward circuitries in the brain, producing extreme pleasure.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
In other words, it is my view that the brain is preprogrammed to feel good (i. e., to seek a sense of well-being/gratification). This is what I term the gratification principle. This usually occurs as the result of instinctive salient/relevant acts or what we normatively decide are salient/relevant acts.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
One challenge is to agree on minimum criteria of good governance that are not perceived as a threat to cultural traditions and to draw on moral concepts that are indigenous to specific cultural settings.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Just like the threat of mutually assured destruction from nuclear weapons, an extensive war in space would make space useless, and the decisions taken today will influence the use of space for many generations to come.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Policies should take account of the emotional dimensions of human behaviour rather than assuming rational action.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Morally relevant emotions are essential for living in social groups and they provide the basis on which we may construct conceptual frameworks that help guide our actions, but human beings should more accurately be thought of as being endowed with morally relevant capacities rather than innate moral knowledge.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
In the stealth era, battlefield strength might just be dictated by the level of stealth or invisibility technology at the disposal of combatants. This is likely to trigger a scientific and technological race, as well as provide new platforms for countries to enhance their prestige domestically and internationally.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
It is unrealistic to imagine a US geostrategic vision which sees its pivotal interests linked exclusively to the Pacific region. More appropriately, we need to consider the wider Middle East, Central Asia and North-East Africa to be bound together in a geopolitical unit of pivotal importance.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
The lack of collective dignity felt by so many in the Arab world is the result of a combination of internal autocratic and corrupt regimes, with predictable ineffective and unaccountable governance, supported by external actors with short-term geopolitical interests.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Emotional Amoral Egoism indicates that ethnic conflict should be understood in terms of a reaction to a failure to satisfy a group's basic physiological, security and ego needs due to discrimination, experienced by a group whose relations are premised, above all, on cultural affinities.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
By promoting justice and thus the interests of the international community as a whole, a state will be able to make its influence over others sustainable and achieve its own national interest.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Our new concept of just power argues that the promotion of justice should be the aim of modern statecraft, not for altruistic reasons, but because it is the only sustainable way that states can promote progress and stability in a globalised world.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
What makes our existence meaningful is highly subjective and ultimately determined by sustainable neurochemical gratification.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
The notion of innate knowledge (including moral knowledge) is rejected, but that of moral sensitivities is accepted.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
A set of global values in keeping with human nature and dignity need to be identified and developed.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
In my opinion, a life governed by reason is likely to be more dignified than one shaped by dogma and unbridled emotions.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
We are therefore driven by both basic survival instincts and rational thought.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Circumstances will determine what I term the survival value of humankind's moral compass. Being highly moral in an immoral environment will almost certainly be detrimental to one's survival and vice versa.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
All policies should be packaged with full awareness of the limitation of human nature (amorality, emotionality and egoism) in both the short- and the long-term.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
We are neither radically free to choose our nature nor entirely determined by our biological heritage.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Much of what we often consider knowledge is actually a point of view held without sufficient grounds: in a word, dogma.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
A state's foreign policy should not just be smart, it should also be just.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Almost every golden age of geo-cultural domains has been characterised by good governance, exchanges, borrowing, innovation and the adaptation of earlier contributions to forms of knowledge, and rationalism.

Nayef Al-Rodhan