Quotes About Ethics

A third form of relativism smuggled into the popular culture is called situation ethics. Popularized by Joseph Fletcher in the 1960s and 1970s, situation ethics holds that all morality is relative to the situation in which one finds oneself, and one's moral obligation is to do the loving thing in that situation.

Despite its philosophical shortcomings, ethical relativism does have appeal, particularly to the popular culture. The first appeal of relativism is based on the important idea that morality does not develop in a sociological vacuum.

First, in terms of the observations of the cultural anthropologists who developed relativism, the degree of moral diversity is overstated and the high degree of moral consensus is understated.

Just because different cultures have different moral standards, even if the degree of moral diversity is not overstated, it does not follow that there is no such thing as absolute values that transcend culture.

A fourth weakness of relativism is that it provides no way to arbitrate among competing cultural value claims.

The fifth and most serious charge against relativism is an extension of the fourth weakness. The relativist cannot morally evaluate any clearly oppressive culture or, more specifically, any obvious tyrant.

A sixth weakness of relativism is that it allows no room for moral reformers or prophets.

A final objection to relativism is the charge that its central premise, namely that moral absolutes do not exist, is a self-defeating statement, since the premise itself is an absolute.

Virtue theory, which is also called aretaic ethics (from the Greek term arete, "virtue"), holds that morality is more than simply doing the right thing. The foundational moral claims made by the virtue theorist concern the moral agent (the person doing the action), not the act that the agent performs.

Socrates would probably say the only way to ensure you're not an asshole is to assume you are one.

Not being able to look folks in the eye in tough situations feels wrong. Would you propose marriage to someone online? Or tell a child her mother was dead in a text message? I worried that what made me good at work wouldn't transfer to a completely online environment.

On joining the aquarium community we all agreed to put aside our carnivorous ways to live off Professor Brown's fish food. Every one of us agreed! If we start to eat each other, what kind of life would that be?

The Wiccan ideal of morality is simple: do what you want, as long as you harm none.

killing rats wasn't in my job description.

Level 7 Selling Our Souls for a Video Game, Part One

I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." —THE SHOOTIST

My experience of the past several years does not lend itself to the belief that good can or will defeat evil. This is not a pessimistic view, but simply an observation of facts as I have experienced them.

It must be nice to be righteous; from where I stand it looks like fucking lunacy.

The difference between honest and dishonest commerce is that when an honest man or woman of business ruins someone, they don't have the courtesy to cut their throat to finish the affair.

You bite on reflex, and then your conscience bites you.

Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?

I more proudly take a speck from a man with empty pockets," said Sabetha, "than riches from a man whose purse stays heavy.

Listen, if you walk into a whorehouse and find yourself getting sucked off, it's because you put some money on the counter, not because the gods transported a pair of lips to your cock.

I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice.