Once you the forces that govern behavior,it's harder to blame the behaver
We must continually remind ourselves that there is a difference between what is natural and what is actually good for us.
Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war.
Morality is often seen as an innovation, like agriculture and writing. From this perspective, babies are pint-sized psychopaths, self-interested beings who need to be taught moral notions such as the wrongness of harming another person.
I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mild cautionary notes, but they're not moral. They don't impart any Judeo-Christian ethic of any kind.
There are some who invoke separation of church and state - to try to get the government out of the business of morality - but this is antithetical to what the founders wanted. The founders wanted to keep theology out of government so that government ...
Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you'll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a 'moral value' - 'affordable health care is a moral value' etc., - then you'll appeal to red-state vote...
Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and less effective ways for us to seek happiness and to avoid misery in this world - and there clearly are - then there are right and wrong answers to qu...
People have a moral standard about what they will do and will not do. At the end of the day someone who cheats has a lower moral standard than someone who does not. And they will cheat in other areas of life as well.
There is something about liberalism that is not nearly as true about conservatism. The further left one goes, the more one finds that the ideology provides moral cover for a life that is not moral. While many people left of center lead fine personal ...
If you had to pick between being moral and successful, obviously I'd choose to be moral. However if you can choose both, will you choose both? I'd say definitely.
Countries and states which have capital punishment have a much higher rate of murder and crime than countries that do not, so that makes sense to me, and the moral question - I struggle with it morally.
The law is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the due process clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.
Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings.
I began graduate school in the late 1980s, and my goal was to understand how morality varied across cultures and nations. I did some research comparing moral judgment in India and the U.S.A.
Our moral authority is as important, if not more important, than our troop strength or our high-tech weapons. We are rapidly losing that moral authority, not only in the Arab world but all over the world.
Alice: [after the Walrus and the Carpenter] That was a very sad story. Tweedle Dee: Aye, but there's a moral to it. Alice: Oh, a very good moral, if you happen to be an oyster.
Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears.
I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.
Character depends on characters. Few people are character. Other's should try to opt one but they don't, they lose.
The problem lies not with genre but with formula, which consists of seeing genre conventions as restrictions rather than mere guidelines, ends in themselves rather than possibilities.
