Moral Autonomy Quotes

I object to Parliament trying to regulate private morality in matters which only affects the person who commits the offence.

Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis.

John von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!

Has a man the right to kill himself? Yes, if his death harms no one and if life is an evil to him. When is life an evil? When it offers a man nothing but suffering and pain.

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it - it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it - you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Morality depends on individual freedom, and it requires some sense to know where to draw the line.

Towards orthodox religion, father's own attitude remained one of tolerance. He looked upon the New Testament as the noble story of a human being which, because of ignorance and the lack of printing presses, had become exaggerated. He maintained that religions served their purpose; some people depended on them all their lives to make them honest. Others did not need to be so held in line. But subjection to any church was a reflection on strength and character. You should be able to get from yourself what you had to go go church for.

It is and has of long time been our constant sense and opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of religion.

Religion gets its morality from us. We don't get our morality from religion.

I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.

'Superman' had nothing to do with the superhero or physical power. It's a reference to the book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra,' by Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote about the evolution of consciousness to reach a higher superman state.

If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am not a free man.

There is nothing more alluring to man than freedom of conscience, but neither is there anything more agonizing.

God is the solitude of men. There was only me: I alone decided to commit Evil; alone, I invented Good. I am the one who cheated, I am the one who performed miracles, I am the one accusing myself today, I alone can absolve myself; me, the man.

I just do what I do because it feels right. Other people attach labels to that.

Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.

For such is my will.

The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.

You cannot make men good by law.

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation.

And he who must be a creator in good and evil: verily, he must be an annihilator first and demolish values.