Quote hunt: the way things are mistaken for the way things should be

October 31, 2016 10:46 PM

I'm trying to hunt the exact quote and source for what I remember as something like this: "I know I am at risk of having my statement of the way I think things are mistaken for a statement of the way that I think things should be". No luck googling this and variations, so I'm stuck.
posted by grazer to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant?
posted by MoseyMe at 2:10 AM on November 1, 2016

How about this from Stephen Covey?

“We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.”
posted by machinecraig at 3:45 AM on November 1, 2016

Sounds like a re-statement of the is-ought problem, which could be anyone from Hume to Lyotard. Maybe one of them would be sufficient even they're not pithy about it.
posted by Wobbuffet at 5:28 AM on November 1, 2016

Might it be part of Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech (1968)? I heard a piece on the radio about it last night and something like this was mentioned.
posted by altolinguistic at 7:01 AM on November 1, 2016

Best answer: Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene Chapter 1?

This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.* I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.

posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:14 AM on November 3, 2016