Gregory Benford Quotes

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue ... Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

There is an ever-widening gap between what science allows and what we should actually do. There are many doors science can open that should be kept closed, on prudential or ethical grounds.

In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.

Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim 'never say never' is one of the most important in ethics.

I think ethics is always there; it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.

An ethical action, like an unethical action, is usually analyzed by politicians purely in pragmatic terms.

We should reserve the notion of 'morality' for the ways in which we can affect one another's experience for better or worse. Some people use the term 'morality' differently, of course, but I think we have a scientific responsibility to focus the conversation so as to make it most useful.

I don't think anyone sets out to do something bad, it's just that it's very difficult.

We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

I have learned that a clear conscience, or a legal opinion, does not make you ethically bullet proof.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

The ends do not justify the means. The means are the ends.

Opinions upon moral questions are more often the expression of strongly felt expediency than of careful ethical reasoning

Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endangers its cargo.

I feel like I've always approached criticism with a degree of morality, right? Like, not as a moralizer, but just as somebody who wants to make sure that the culture we're getting is at least morally aware of how it's functioning.

We can't make a decision based on PR value. We have to do what we think is right.