Nayef Al-Rodhan - Human Quotes

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Human beings are largely motivated by their emotional repertoire, manifested through their need for attachment, physical security, a sense of belonging and a positive personal and collective identity.

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

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
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
There is only one collective human civilisation comprised of geo-cultural domains and cultures.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Justice is paramount to civilisational triumph because of its centrality to human dignity needs, the success of individual geo-cultural domains and the well-being of human civilisation.

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

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
Each high point in the history of human civilisation has taken place where the conditions were ripe and has borrowed and built on the achievements of other cultures whose golden age may have passed.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Human nature as we know it is, nevertheless, malleable and manageable. It may be radically modified as a result of advances in bio-, molecular, nano- and computational technologies. It will therefore be essential to establish a clear code of ethics regulating the use of these technologies sooner rather than later.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Human nature is governed by general self-interest and affected by genetic predisposition, which implies that there are likely to be limits to our moral sensitivities.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
A good governance paradigm that limits excesses of human nature and ensures an atmosphere of happiness and productivity by promoting reason and dignity is required.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
The history of human civilisation is a history of mutual borrowings.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
In my view, most human beings are innately neither moral nor immoral but rather amoral. They are driven by emotional self-interest and have the potential to be either moral or immoral, depending on what their self-interest dictates, and will be influenced in their choices by emotions and socio-cultural contexts. Circumstances will determine the survival value of humankind's moral compass in that being highly moral in an immoral environment may be detrimental to one's survival and vice versa. Indeed, our neuronal architecture is pre-programmed to seek gratification and feel good regardless of the reason. All apparently altruistic behaviour serves self-interest at some level.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
I define sustainable history as a durable progressive trajectory in which the quality of life on this planet or other planets is premised on the guarantee of human dignity for all at all times and under all circumstances.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Many of the great achievements in history that are commonly attributed to one geo-cultural domain often owe a great debt to those of others. In this sense, some of the greatest achievements of human civilisation have been collective efforts and are part of the same human story.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Globalization is a process that encompasses the causes, course, and consequences of transnational and transcultural integration of human and non-human activities.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
In a globalized world, security can no longer be thought of as a zero-sum game involving states alone. Global security, instead, has five dimensions that include human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and, therefore, global security and the security of any state or culture cannot be achieved without good governance at all levels that guarantees security through justice for all individuals, states, and cultures.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Human and societal security should be seen as complementary to state security, and security must be thought of in multi-sum and multi-dimensional terms (human, national, transnational, environmental and transcivilisational).

Nayef Al-Rodhan
The enduring assumption that human behaviour is governed by innate morality and reason is at odds with the persistence of human deprivation, inequality, injustice, misery, brutality and conflict.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Human beings are emotional amoral egoists, driven above all by emotional self-interest. All of our thoughts, beliefs and motivations are neurochemically mediated, some predetermined for survival, others alterable.

Nayef Al-Rodhan
Strict ethical guidelines need to be developed in anticipation of significant technological and biotechnological advances in order to guarantee human dignity.

Nayef Al-Rodhan