Quotes About Ethics

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness.

Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best Ends by the best Means.

When morality is reduced to personal tastes, people exchange the moral question, What is good? for the pleasure question, What feels good?

If morality is reducible to culture, then there can be no real moral progress. For the only way one can say that a culture is getting better , or progressing, is if there are objective moral norms that are not dependent on culture to which a society may draw closer.

For abortion opponents believe that a class of persons are being killed by such methods as dismemberment, suffocation, and burning, and thus are more than perplexed to be told that they don't have to participate in the killings if they don't want to. Saying 'If you don't like abortion, don't have one.' to those opposed to abortion is similar to telling abolitionists not to own slaves if they don't like slavery.

There are two kinds of oughts, and there are two ways to be wrong about something. We can be wrong by being irrational, or we can be wrong by being unethical. Morality deals with the second.

We don't invent morality; we discover it like we discover multiplication tables.

Does a 'greased palm' offer a 'slippery shake'?

Are there any Fair Trade Laws applicable in the exchange of 'An Eye for an Eye' and a 'Tooth for a Tooth'?

If we do what we think is right, not try to point-score, people will begin to trust us.

It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens

Quién los jueces con pasión, sin ser ungüento hace humanos, pues untándoles las manos les ablanda el corazón?

Y en la fornicación, que es un bien general, debe haber democracia libre, porque si no… va a haber que hacerlo por correspondencia…

En el horizonte lo que se vislumbra es el fascismo y la única forma de evitarlo, de caer en esas arenas movedizas, es recuperando el humanismo.

no sería bueno que los mexicanos dejaran de creer en unos hombres que en su mayoría sólo han asesinado, robado y castrado las conciencias?

La moral siempre se adapta a la vida, y nunca a la inversa

The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.

There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.

A good historian is timeless although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.

I am for a clear distinction between public and private life. I believe private matters should be regulated in private and I have asked those close to me to respect this.