Maleficence Ethics Quotes

In just about every area of society, there's nothing more important than ethics. ~ Henry Paulson

I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether. ~ Dalai Lama

It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics. ~ Salman Rushdie

In our tribunal, we look only at personal criminal responsibility in a very tightly defined, narrow way and we demand proof beyond a resonable doubt about the involvement of the individual. We do no have a mandate to establish the moral responsibility of those who saw things happen and did nothing, including people who might have had the capacity to stop the process and did nothing. But we have to be careful in thinking that just because we focus on individual criminal guilt we therefore absolve the community. The old distinctions are too simplistic when we move up the chain of command and witness the merging of the collectivity into the personae of these charismatic political and military leaders.'
-Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor for International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ~ Erna Paris

Notice that "I" is at the center of the word "ethical." There is no "they." Achieving the ethics of excellence is our individual assignment. ~ Price Pritchett

I wonder if it's ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens? D'ya suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime? I'm not much on rear window ethics. ~ John Michael Hayes

Can we be sure that they are incapable of the feelings or sentiments that are believed to place them on a lower scale than humans? Do we deny sensitivity to all of the so-called lower orders to blunt, protect, and, ultimately, deny our own? We will see that bees can grieve over teh loss of a queen, sound war cries or hum with contentment; they can be angry, docile, ferocious, playful, aggressive, appear happy, or utter pitiful sounds of distress. are these not emotions akin to ours, merely expressed differently? ~ William Longgood

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. ~ Samuel Johnson

Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be? ~ George Will

The secret of the power of Christianity is not in its ethics. It is not in Christian ideas or philosophy ... the secret of Christianity is found ... in the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Billy Graham

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. ~ Jeremy Bentham

An ethic is not an ethic, and a value not a value without somesacrifice for it. Something given up, something not gained. ~ St. Jerome

Man's ethics must not end with man, but should extend to the universe. He must regain the consciousness of the great Chain of Life from which he cannot be separated. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who on the grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies. ~ H.L. Mencken

Up till recently 75% of all inventions from the time of the industrial revolution is credited to the countries where Protestant ethics were taught ~ Sunday Adelaja

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 should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.' For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions, and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting what manner of man he is. ~ Epictetus

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. ~ Aristotle.

Netiquette: The social code of network communication. Internet code of conduct based on the Golden Rule. Ethical philosophy of common rules. ~ David Chiles

Helping is not, as conventionally thought, a charitable act that is praiseworthy to do but not wrong to omit. It is something that everyone ought to do. ~ Peter Singer

I don't want to do anything that violates my own personal code of ethics and morals. ~ Michael Moore

In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all. ~ Oscar Wilde

If it is true that we cannot possess knowledge of what is good in any absolute sense, it is equally true that we have an ethical duty to decide between what is better and what is worse. ~ Richard Kearney

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
[Letter to William Short, 31 October 1819] ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator or a bystander. It is tempting to say that a Nazi murderer is beyond the pale of understanding ... Yet to deny a human being his human character is to render ethics impossible.
To yield to this temptation, to find other people inhuman, is to take a step toward, not away from, the Nazi position. To find other people incomprehensible is to abandon the search for understanding, and thus to abandon history. ~ Timothy Snyder

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~ Voltaire

How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life's diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can't tell us what to do, or how we should behave. And this is the big problem for many believers, who want to find in the story of our origins a reason for our existence, and a sense of how to behave. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

I never thought I'd have to give you-a former Sunday School teacher-a lecture on ethics."
"Former Sunday School teachers don't go around without their underwear."
"You show me where it says that in the Bible. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I had a very difficult childhood. I was surrounded by people who had both parents, which made me feel different. Having a bit of a rougher existence early on, it made me appreciate the work ethic that my grandparents instilled in me. ~ George Lopez

All lines are gray in the dark. ~ Nenia Campbell

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. ~ John Stuart Mill

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Due to their deep conviction of the sovereignty of God, the Word of God was taken very seriously by Calvinists. It became the unconditional norm for faith and life to the believer. The Divine injunction not to add or take away has been scrupulously observed by Calvinism. Thus, a Calvinistic ethic was developed with its high theism. Because God was held to be the absolute sovereign for man's life, it became simply a question of determining the will of God from His Word. Calvinistic ethics is not a system of opinion, but an attempt to make the will of God as revealed in the Bible the authoritative guide for social as well as personal direction. ~ Henry R. Van Til

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. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

still the teachings of the philosophers are not the commandments of the gods, but the discoveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to the rules of logic, and what was inconsequent and erroneous. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

What is so 'only' about 'yourself'? Is not the first thing one has to learn in this respect that to do something for yourself--I mean, the right kind of thing--is just as valuable and ethical than to do it for somebody else? Wouldn't you say that the good feeling we get simply because we did 'it' (whatever) for somebody else is cheating, in that it postpones the question: what is it good for? ~ Rudolf Arnheim

Spinoza was a pantheist: He believed that God was within nature, not a separate Being with an independent will. "In Spinoza's system," Jewish philosopher Louis Jacobs has written, "God and Nature are treated as different names for the same thing. God is not 'outside' or apart from Nature. He did not create Nature but is Nature." This doctrine set Spinoza at loggerheads with both Judaism and Christianity. It was absurd in his view to credit God with attributes such as will or intellect; that was like demanding that Sirius bark, just because people refer to it as the Dog Star. Spinoza tried to posit a system of ethics based on reason, not supernatural revelation. ~ Joseph Telushkin

We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for? ~ George Bernard Shaw

Ethics, like natural selection, make existence possible. Aesthetics, like sensual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and variety and change. ~ Oscar Wilde

I am closer to a European viewpoint of the world than an American one. My ethics and ideals are based on European concepts. ~ Bianca Jagger

The law of evolution is that the strongest survives!' 'Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical ... There is no strength to be gained from hurting one another. Only weakness. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Why [..] should the boundary of sacrosanct life match the boundary of our species? ~ Peter Singer

Swag is my ethic, s/o to my bitches ~ Joe Prophet

Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government. ~ Ted Cruz

I like Cinderella, I really do. She has a good work ethic. I appreciate a good, hard-working gal. And she likes shoes. The fairy tale is all about the shoe at the end, and I'm a big shoe girl. ~ Amy Adams

The standards of judgement must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

A wise man does not trust all his eggs to one basket. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

In just about every gangster movie there is a scene where the mob boss says, 'Hey, I'm just a businessman. ~ William Hageman