Une éthique véritablement socialiste, c’est-à-dire qui cherche la justice sans supprimer la liberté, qui impose aux individus des charges mais sans abolir l’individualité, se trouvera fort embarrassée par les problèmes que pose la condition de...

And not just the right thing; it’s profoundly the right thing to do, because the one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives....

If truth and moral values are relative, one cannot claim that certain human rights are universally applicable to all cultures and all people.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice

Now there are quite a lot of things which these two men could agree in doing for their fellow citizens. Both would approve of efficient sewers and hospitals and a healthy diet. But sooner or...

It is now an easy matter to spell out the ethic of a truth: ‘Do all that you can to persevere in that which exceeds you perseverance. Persevere in the interruption. Seize in your being...

What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on...

I don’t believe vegans (or vegetarians) who still get their (packaged, preservative/chemical-ridden) food from industrial food systems have any righteous ground to stand on, nor do I think a deep look at the sentient life...

The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the ‘Super’, i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole....

There are rules and ethics that companies have to follow and should not breach.

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world,...

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is...

…ethics were in most cases a burden that could be reasonably ignored in pursuit of necessity.

It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands. Still more obviously true...

Media work needs ideals. Maybe thirty years from now, after I retire, I’ll see the media mature and make the transition from political party, interest group, and corporate to truly public. But over the next...

It’s not doing what is right that’s hard for a President. It’s knowing what is right.

Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval.

[…] like any human practices, those of religions are not exempt from ethical questioning. Rituals and rites in groups change behavior, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. For the madness of crowds is...

Ego makes you lonely.

Think of it.” Now he is speaking to you, no one but you. “It may not matter what we want for science, or what we think is ethical. All we must do is provide the...

Perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions...

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

The values most important to us are always the most easily exploitable.

He is not prone to remember evils, since it is proper to a magnanimous person not to nurse memories, especially not of evils, but to overlook them. He does not speak evil even of his...

A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the...

You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he...

Since I was a small girl, I have lived inside this cottage, shelted by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering—I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege...

To recognize untruth as a condition of life–that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

When we ask people to live their lives through our models, we are potentially reducing life itself. How can we ever know what we might be losing?

Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.

Lots of things that smell are legal. But if a candidate is putting an emphasis on ethics, then he has an obligation that the spirit of the law be adhered to, not just the letter.

Some people say they love animals and yet harm them nonetheless; I’m glad those people don’t love me.

Consider the recent financial crisis and its link to faulty reward systems. President Bill Clinton’s objective of increasing homeownership by rewarding potential home buyers and lenders is one example. The Clinton administration “went to ridiculous...

I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense.

My blood was boiling, which is not a good thing for a coldblood.Dracula was dead. Rex was dying or dead.Breakfast was dying. And I was caring about it all. Meanwhile, that blasted Gunnar did nothing...

To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are...

Evil ethicists are the holocaust of humanity; if philosophy can be the instant sunlight to their endless vampirism, it will save more lives than all the doctors who have ever lived.

[The answer of Solon to the question ‘Which is the most perfect popular government?’]That where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution.

The media “could not be policed from without and had to be policed from within.

Anyone who says that economic security is a human right, has been to much babied. While he babbles, other men are risking and losing their lives to protect him. They are fighting the sea, fighting...

Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective.

Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession....

The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

It is through justification of one’s actions that a completely guiltless life is possible.

Let’s say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks...

Our creed [atheism] is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don’t.

Religion and ethics were not always – or even frequently – mutually compatible. The demands of religious absolutism or fundamentalism or rampaging relativism often deflected the worst aspects of contemporary culture or prejudices rather than...

With deregulation, privatisation, free trade, what we’re seeing is yet another enclosure and, if you like, private taking of the commons. One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this...