Quotes About Ethics

Didn't anyone who changed things ultimately lead some people—perhaps many people—to death, grief, torment?

The new breed of reporter doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't have sex beyond reproducing, and most importantly—doesn't believe. They don't believe they are there to question everything. They are there to print whatever is told to them. The news is dead, my friend. Buried under a mountain of full color advertising, and six-digit deposit slips.

We have a special name, here, for a certain kind of failure to defer to the greater good—for putting a personal sense of doing right above any objective measure of the outcome. It's called 'moral vanity'.

Simulated consciousness" was as oxymoronic as "simulated addition.

If the technology improves sufficiently, the environmental impact of the wealthiest Copy could end up being less than that of the most ascetic living human. Who'll have the high moral ground, then? We'll be the most ecologically sound people on the planet.

Simulated consciousness" was as oxymoronic as "simulated addition.

But what if a large part of your business consists of selling things that put people out of work. Including many of the people who actually pay for the things you're trying to sell.

I said, 'The truth is whatever you can get away with.' 'No, that's journalism. The truth is whatever you can't escape.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.   —Aristotle

You can't build happiness on someone else's pain.

It should go without saying that any cause is better served by doing something well than by doing it badly... In fact, it is better to do nothing for the cause at all than to do something that reflects badly on it... So the first principle of responsible activism should not be "Do something." Instead, one should take a page from medical ethics and "First, do no harm." (Harm to the cause, that is.)

Don't trust the right thing, done for the wrong reason. The 'why' of a thing—that's the foundation.

parvenus, relied on money of questionable antecedents

With its continued dismissal of the law of God in ethics, Fundamentalism expressed both a "spiritualized" form of situational ethics and a "Christianly submissive" statism.

If no divine law is recognized above the law of the State, then the law of man has become absolute in men's eyes--there is then no logical barrier to totalitarianism.

Since the fall of man was ethical in character (not metaphysical) the unregenerate and regenerate share the facts of the world and the rules of thought, but their interpretation and use of them are far from neutral.

If we will not have inscripturated morality from God as our sociopolitical standard, we have no principle to protect us from those who wish to play god.

One must choose theonomy or autonomy, but autonomy is morally crippled. So also are half-way measures between theonomy and autonomy; the blending of the two yields subtle antinomianism.

The IRS received the following note: "Gentlemen: Enclosed you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest.

I love this book. When other U.S. reporters were licking Ken Lay's loafers, Leopold went for Enron's thieving throat. Leopold is a journalist who insists on real investigative reporting–inside documents, inside sources, hard knife-in-the-gut evidence–detective-style reporting that is just about illegal in the U.S.A. Bravo and my personal Pulitzer to Jason Leopold. Every journalist in America should read this, then quit or riot.

I understand that smoking is vaguely inappropriate in certain situations. You know, like an orphanage, cancer ward, whatever.

One did not need to believe in the Force to know right from wrong. Many who held no faith in the Force acted righteously, and he had known more than one sentient who had acted selfishly, even cruelly, and used belief to justify doing so.

One did not need to believe in the Force to know right from wrong.

Ms. Anvers, I'm tired of hearing you regurgitate your junior year Ethics in Journalism textbook. We need to do this if we're going to stop him.