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Ethics Quotes
"She was deemed an unfit mother, in spite of the fact that she goes to the gym every day,' Hal once told me. . . .Beautiful people are often forgiven for many things--and maybe she's gotten through life that way, but I don't forgive her for anything--and I don't even know what awful things she's done other than showing a lack of parental fitness."
52
"Recent discoveries in developmental psychology and other behavioral disciplines have shown that babies are born with a "first draft of a moral mind. Among others, brain scientist, Gary Marcus, has described this moral understanding as "already defined and organized before experience. Evolutionary psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, describes this first draft of the moral mind as consisting of five primary values. Modern cross-cultural anthropologists point to these same five primary values as the foundation of all cultures, currently and historically, and 21st century ethologists suggest the same values apply to most if not all species."
52
"I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between."
52
"Good is not always good."
52
"We should all consider each other as human beings, and we should respect each other."
51
"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
51
"The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing."
51
"You think because you are born of light that you're somehow better and kinder than those who aren't, but you're not. It merely makes you feel entitled in your wrongful actions against others. But, you're no better than my mother. If anything you're worse because you think your viciousness is justified..."
51
"The first and only principle of sexual ethics: the accuser is always in the wrong."
51
"Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being."
51
"Blame is a human concept, one of its blackest and most selfish and self-binding."
51
"In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms."
51
"Political correctness' as 'over-sensitivity' is code for saying the privileged shouldn't have their unearned privileges questioned."
51
"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."
51
"Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do."
51
"Our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-theother-dog's-tail illusion: In a moral argument, we expect the successful rebuttal of an opponent's arguments to change the opponent's mind. Such a belief is like thinking that forcing a dog's tail to wag by moving it with your hand will make the dog happy."
50
"Do not misunderstand person by beauty You really do not know its real or Mask on dirty thoughts."
50
"Service is born out of love not duty."
50
"Occult Theft,--Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,--corrupts the body and soul of man, to the last fibre of them. And the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists."
50
"Sometimes you will do good and not get an acknowledgement for it. Don't let that dishearten you, the world is a better place with your good deeds."
50
"All right, Schwartz, tackle my mind now. Go as deep as you want. I was born on Baronn in the Sirius Sector. I lived my life in an atmosphere of anti-Terrestrialism in the formative years, so I can't help what flaws and follies lie at the roots of my subconscious. But look on the surface and tell me if, in my adult years, I have not fought bigotry in myself. Not in others; that would be easy. But in myself, and as hard as I could."
50
"Evil is something you need to fight until it ceases trying to control you."
50
"You will never reach your dreams without honoring others along the way."
50
"His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him. He had, on the other other hand, only to keep his antiquated honour, and be delivered inch by inch into the power of this great enemy of mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. Whenever he looked down into the square he saw the comfortable policeman, a pillar of common sense and common order. Whenever he looked back at the breakfast-table he saw the President still quietly studying him with big, unbearable eyes."
50
"The truth actually lies mostly in three words - God bless you, I love you, I adore you, I trust you, I believe you, I mistrust you, and finally God curse you, I hate you and talak talak talak. Only the frauds and politicians speak beyond the three truthful words."
50
"Ethically, I think pretty much every code of ethics for doctors suggests that they should not be in an interrogation room, particularly if there's anything coercive or abusive going on."
49
"Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies-they won't understand."
49
"Tearing money is an impiety, like throwing away bread."
49
"For you it may be enjoyable to betraying but do you know you are killing one innocent person who trusted on you.So keep it mind your enjoy is not free.Someone paid for your fun by His/Her life."
49
"The punishment for rape should be castration."
49
"The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important."
49
"However, what I do believe to genuinely sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. It's those unhappy, unwanted children, who then grew into angry adults, who have caused the great majority of humankind's miseries. They are the ones who make states feel feral; streets dangerous; relationships violent."
49
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
49
"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."
49
"When we lift our forks, we hang our hats somewhere. We set ourselves in one relationship or another to farmed animals, farm-workers, national economies, and global markets. Not making a decision--eating 'like everyone else'--is to make the easiest decision, a decision that is increasingly problematic."
49
"It's a general rule " a law of space, as it was a law of the sea in the old days, that ships had to respond to distress calls. Unless of course it places their own lives in danger. Bearing this thought in mind, as you can probably tell by my writing, my fingers are beginning to tremble slightly."
49
"What a difference! Under the esthetic sky, everything is buoyant, beautiful, transient! when ethics arrives on the scene, everything becomes harsh, angular and infinitely boring."
49
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