Quotes About Ethics

The problem is that many people treat morality as a list of rules. But in reality, every moral system rests on a worldview. In every decision we make, we are not just deciding what we want to do. We are expressing our view of the purpose of human life. In the words of theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a moral act "cannot be seen as just an isolated act, but involves fundamental options about the nature and significance of life itself.

I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

And if some people heard "meth addict murders three people" or "mother throws children from bridge" and thought, get rid of them, and then voted for the death penalty? "But that just isn't justice," he said, later emphasizing, "It's a pendulum swing. I still don't quite understand why the United States wants that kind of vengeance, and that's all it is.

Who, after all, was to say, what was the 'right side' of the war, especially after the turmoil, the food shortages, and scarcity of luxuries?

She had difficulty accepting adultery despite its prevalence among high-born men of the era.

I have come to see that the time-honoured practice of bestowing anonymity on our communities and informants fools few and protects no one - save, perhaps, the anthropologist's own skin.

The ancient world was not a place for modern gender equity. But the Stoic philosophers, in their discourses on political and moral life, held that virtue, or ethical excellence, had no gender. Zeno of Citium envisaged an ideal community of sages that included women. The view follows from the Stoic doctrine that all humans are endowed with reason.

The Stoics are exhorters. And at their best, they exhort us to rise to our potential through reason, cooperation, and selflessness.

Yet one could speak truth and still be a villain

One of them says, 'Why did they do it?' And the other answers, 'Because they could.' That is the only answer there ever is.

One of them says, "Why did they do it, Nina and Darrell?" And the other answers, "Because they could." That is the only answer there ever is.

Never keep someone on a job who likes it too much. She knows when she sees the single flash of that gleeful and hungry face that they're not here to raid for what they can find. They're not here for anything that can be given.

You would see good in the face of Satan himself if he arrived at your door with a pitiful story and a hungry belly." "And would I be wrong to do so? If Satan needed feeding?

Pourquoi ont-ils fait ça, [...] ?" Et l'autre répond : "Parce qu'ils le pouvaient." Et c'est la seule réponse qui sera jamais.

But that wasn't my business. Esti was a grown woman,

There was no greater hypocrite than one with a high moral tone, Miss Marple reflected.

You actually cannot sell the idea of freedom, democracy, diversity, as if it were a brand attribute and not reality -- not at the same time as you're bombing people, you can't.

Heroes prided themselves on a thing called generosity. And what was generosity? It was the giving away of something to those that had not earned it, and it was usually done by those that had not earned it.

Worse things have been done than that. Yes, much worse. Yet perhaps the death of the very innocent always carries a curse.

Bad, bad science. You can practically see the fingers wagging. Scientists had been bad boys; it was time for them to behave themselves. The tobacco industry would be the daddy who made sure they did. It wasn't just money at stake; it was individual liberty. Today, smoking, tomorrow … who knew? By protecting smoking, we protected freedom.

It was one thing for adults to choose to take risks, another thing to impose those risks on children (or anyone else). The EPA wisely refocused attention on this crucial distinction: "Having a choice to take a risk for themselves should not permit smokers to impose a risk on others.

Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did.