Quotes About Ethics

It only too often yields to the temptation to become sycophantic, opportunist and lying, like a politician who sees the truth but wants to keep his place in popular favour.

Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating in us.

In this situation, what we call natural ethics has nothing to offer but the narcissistic satisfaction of being able to think one is better than others. This is where ethics based on religion enters the scene with its promises of a better life hereafter. I am inclined to think that, for as long as virtue goes unrewarded here below, ethics will preach in vain.

It has long been our contention that ' dread of society [soziale Angst] is the essence of what is called conscience.

All who seek to be nobler than their constitution permits succumb to neurosis; they would have been better in health if they had found it possible to be morally worse.

The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.

In other matters no sensible person will behave so irresponsibly or rest content with such feeble grounds for his opinions and for the line he takes. It is only in the highest and most sacred things that he allows himself to do so.

There are innumerable civilized people who would shrink from murder or incest, and who yet do not hesitate to gratify their avarice, their aggressiveness and their sexual lusts, and who have no compunction in hurting others by lying, fraud and calumny, so long as they remain unpunished for it; and no doubt this has been so for many cultural epochs.    If

La consciencia de la culpabilidad y el sentimiento del deber serían las dos propiedades características del animal gregario.

I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all.

To love one's neighbour as oneself — a commandment which is really justified by the fact that nothing else runs as strongly counter to the original nature of man.

La société transforme le désagréable en injuste.

Jeg tror at den hellighet vi tilkjennegir de ti bud, sløver vår sans for erkjennelse av virkeligheten.

Vicdan?n talepleriyle Ben'in yetenekleri aras?ndaki gerilim, 'suçluluk duygusu' olarak alg?lan?r. Toplumsal duygular da, diÄŸer duygularla özdeÅŸ biçimde Ben-ülküsü temeline dayan?rlar." Sigmund Freud, 'Ben ve O', sayfa 67

bisogna svelarsi come il solo malvagio fra tutte le nobili persone con le quali si spartisce la vita

Die Strenge der ethischen Forderungen würde nicht viel schaden, wenn die Erziehung sagte: So sollten die Menschen sein, um glücklich zu werden und andere glücklich zu machen; aber man muß damit rechnen, daß sie nicht so sind. Anstatt dessen läßt man den Jugendlichen glauben, daß alle anderen die ethischen Vorschriften erfüllen, also tugendhaft sind. Damit begründet man die Forderung, daß er auch so werde.

el antiguo principio de minima non curat praetor, que entre lo bueno y lo malo existe todo un amplio grupo de cosas pequeñas e indiferentes, de las que nadie debe hacerse un reproche.

Não quebro muitas vezes a cabeça a propósito da questão do bem e do mal, mas, em média, descobri muito pouco «bem» entre os homens. Segundo o que deles sei, são na maioria escumalha, quer se reclamem da ética desta ou daquela doutrina, quer de nenhuma.

Another question: why do people often find animal suffering harder to accept than the suffering of other human beings?

Rather than, say, Toni Morrison, who called basing a character on a real person an infringement of copyright. A person owns his life, she says. It's not for another to use it for fiction.

What exactly did Simone Weil mean when she said, When you have to make a decision in life, about what you should do, do what will cost you the most. Do what is difficult because it is difficult. Do what will cost you the most. Who were these people?

Let's face it, this is America. Anything that's bad for business, people don't want to hear. When it comes to money or doing the right thing, most people are going to choose money. Close up shop for months till they can make a new vaccine? How many businesses would still be alive after that?

He was saying that perhaps it was a mistake to bring human beings into a world that had such a strong possibility of becoming, in their lifetimes, a bleak and terrifying if not wholly unlivable place.

Why do people often find animal suffering harder to accept than the suffering of other human beings?