Quotes About Ethics

Wasn't there a tribe in Africa that lashed the dead body to the back of the one who had murdered it? That would certainly be justice—to carry the rotting corpse around as a physical burden as well as public shame and damnation.

If scientific language is about longer individual life in exchange for an ethical one; if political agenda is the xenophobic protection of a few of our families against the catastrophic others; if religious language is discredited as contempt for the nonreligious; if secular language bridles in fear of the sacred; if market language is merely an excuse for inciting greed; if the future of knowledge is not wisdom but "upgrade," where might we look for humanity's own future?

Like Twyla, Morrison wants us ashamed of how we treat the powerless, even if we, too, feel powerless. And one of the ethical complexities of "Recitatif" is the uncomfortable fact that even as Twyla and Roberta fight to assert their own identities—the fact they are both "somebody"—they simultaneously cast others into the role of nobodies.

Enron, Halliburton, and WorldCom.

wrong is because it is the taking of a life. When you take someone's life, you also take away their right to liberty and their pursuit of happiness. If you take someone's life, you also take their dream, their future, their family, their career, and their children away from them. All other rights are lost when you take away the right to life.

Our problem is to work out a social organization which shall be as efficient as possible without offending our notions of a satisfactory way of life." —JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Selfishness is uncomfortable even for the selfish. Hence the rise of gated communities: the privileged don't like to be reminded of their privileges - if these carry morally dubious connotations.

Our disability is discursive: we simply do not know how to talk about these things any more. For the last thirty years, when asking ourselves whether we support a policy, a proposal or an initiative, we have restricted ourselves to issues of profit and loss - economic questions in the narrowest sense. But this is not an instinctive human condition: it is an acquired taste.

Keynes himself had taken the view that capitalism would not survive if its workings were reduced to merely furnishing the wealthy with the means to get wealthier. It was

And once we cease to value the public over the private, surely we shall come in time to have difficulty seeing just why we should value law (the public good par excellence) over force.

If 1989 was about re-discovering liberty, what limits are we now willing to place upon it? Even in the most 'freedom-loving' societies, freedom comes with constraints. But if we accept some limitations—and we always do—why not others? Why

As the progressive Abbé Boulier explained to François Fejtö, when trying to prevent him from writing about the Rajk trial: drawing attention to Communist sins is 'to play the imperialists' game'.11

is never a struggle between good and evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest:

in an Apparently Godless Era.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose.

Silvio Berlusconi, who entered politics not so much to further the national house-cleaning as to ensure that his own business dealings remained safely unaffected.

we have smuggled in a misleadingly 'ethical' vocabulary to bolster our economic arguments

The truth of authenticity is different from the truth of honesty. To be authentic is to live as one wishes others to live; to be honest is to admit that this is impossible.

V následujících letech Izrael znehodnotí, podkopá a nakonec zni?í význam a využitelnost holokaustu a omezí jej na to, co v nÄ›m již dnes pÃ…â"¢iznanÄ› mnoho lidí vidí, totiž izraelskou výmluvu pro vlastní neblahé po?ínání.

The idea that it was the state's business to know what was good for people—while we accept it uncomplainingly in school curriculums and hospital practices—smacked of eugenics and perhaps euthanasia.

In an age when young people are encouraged to maximize self-interest and self-advancement, the grounds for altruism or even good behavior become obscured. Short of reverting to religious authority—itself on occasion corrosive of secular institutions—what can furnish a younger generation with a sense of purpose beyond its own short-term advantage?

There is a widespread sense that since 'they' will do what they want in any case—while feathering their own nests—why should 'we' waste time trying to influence the outcome of their actions.

But John Chapman told us he didnt eat meat cause he couldnt stand for somethin livin to be killed jest to keep him alive.