Ethical Critique Quotes

Subordination to morality can be slavish or vain or self- interested or resigned or gloomily enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of despair, just as subordination to a prince can be: in itself it is nothing moral.

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.

Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty to the masses or society, and ethical or moral pronouncements added by busybody critics are of no concern to the writer.

Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.

Kings are in morality what monsters are in the world of nature.

If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform.

If we say that anyone who 'moralizes' must be perfect morally then we are in effect saying no one can moralize.

Is there a more violent book than the Bible?

My hope is that people will be repulsed by the character's complete lack of ethics and obsession with consumerism - that's what I was saying about the difference between the character's message and the film's message.

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.

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.