Quotes About Ethics

Fatal tendency to try to make interesting people good.

I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.

Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones?»

I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.

He doesn't care that Bunny is dead. I could forgive him if that was why he felt this way, but it isn't. He wouldn't care if we killed half a dozen people. All that matters to him is keeping his own name out of it.

fortuna simul cum moribus immutatur.

If we don't want a baby, we must take responsibility for our actions before a baby becomes a reality. God has made us capable of having babies, and when one has been conceived, it is His intention for that child to come into the world. The moment the child is conceived, he is a person, and to abort a pregnancy is murder of a human being.

He sins because he is a sinner. Fundamentally, on the inside, man is a sinner, and that accounts for his actions. I am sure that many people in that day said of the Assyrians,

Ain't no point in having a god, man, if he's just a slum lord never does nothin'.

Nothing is black and white. There are no universal standards that determine what's good and what's evil. It's subjective.

You got it, sis. I promise I'll adhere to your strict moral code while committing grand theft auto." Hammett

Everyone believes there are horrible people doing horrible things; things we would never, ever do. But we do those same horrible things. There is no us and them. Only we.

What type of person would want to give out tickets and bust people's balls for a living? Answer: bullies and jerks and guys with little man syndrome who needed to boost their fragile egos by pushing people around. But Jack wasn't like that. She was a decent cop, and a decent person.

In science, having more data is always preferred. In life, secrets and lies make society manageable.

Magistrates often condemn criminals to be kept in prison or in chains. They ought not to do this, for such punishments are forbidden: prisons are for restraining people, not for punishing them (Justinian's Digest 48.19.8.9).

Herod was afraid of what his guests would think of him: so he did that which made him "greatly distressed," he beheaded John the Baptist. Pilate feared offending the Jews: so he did that which he knew in his conscience was unjust--he delivered up Jesus to be crucified. If this is not slavery, what is?

there have been credible reports that researchers have already developed a self-aware computer in secrecy.

to get anywhere worth while without the higher mathematics is not only impossible but that it would be vaguely immoral if you could.

I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

It's admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after a while you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging. Or to kick a cat.

1. In our scientifically oriented culture, traditional understandings of morality and related notions are considered passé.

Freedom was traditionally understood as the power to do what one ought to do.

Once objective duty, goodness, and virtue were abandoned under the guise of scientism and secularism, the only moral map that could replace objective morality is what Daniel Callahan has called minimalistic ethics —anything is morally permissible provided only that you do not harm someone else.

Until Christians can do a better job of seeing these issues and articulating them in terms of objective duty and virtue, the Jack Kevorkians will continue to win the "debate" (if that is what we should call the media rhetoric that surrounds the framing of moral dilemmas), precisely because the Kevorkians are on the side of individual rights.