Moral Obligations Quotes

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

This fight has nothing to do with soldierly gallantry or principles of the Geneva Convention. If the fight against the partisans in the East, as well as in the Balkans, is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point where the available forces are insufficient to control the area. It is therefore not only justified, but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction, even against women and children, so long as it ensures success.

Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be gone; he would have the same voyage to make, but his chart and compass would be overboard!

A conception of law which identifies what is right with the notion of what is good for—for the individual, or the family, or the people, or the largest number—becomes inevitable once the absolute and transcendent measurements of religion or the law of nature have lost their authority

We slow the progress of science today for all sorts of ethical reasons. Biomedicine could advance much faster if we abolished our rules on human experimentation in clinical trials, as Nazi researchers did.

Whether a war is “just” or “unjust”, whether it is a war of aggression or of defense, the protection and care due to the wounded and sick are in no way affected.

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.

With so much power, science will inevitably receive strong criticism. It comes with success. It’s entirely appropriate. Take it as a complement. And get over it.

My personal code of conduct and compliance with a wide range of government ethics provisions have ensured that I have maintained ethical standards.

Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.

Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one imperative: Remember!

When should we nudge and when should we shove, I think, it's a political judgment. Obviously in some situations we need shoves, we need laws. Fraud is against the law, murder is against the law, drunk-driving is against the law. We don't need just nudges.

… the public has come to accept torture as a legitimate instrument of government, something that the Founding Fathers would have been aghast at.

No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

The American system of civilian control of the military recognizes that soldiers' attention must be fixed on winning battles and staying alive, and that the fog of war can sometimes obscure the rule of law.

Whoever takes it upon himself a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety.

In Swaraj, based on ahimsa, people need not know their rights, but it is also necessary for them to know their duties.

That the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses ... be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction

No society can exist without some means for restraining individual rapacity.

Property has its duties as well as its rights…. To the neglect of these duties in times past is mainly to be attributed to that diseased state of society in which such crimes can take their rise…. It is not in the enactment of statutes of extraordinary severity, but chiefly in the better and more faithful performance of those duties … that a permanent remedy … is to be sought.

Honor is a public enemy, and conscience a domestic, and he that would secure his pleasure, must pay a tribute to one and go halves with t'other.

The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.

Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: 'What are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved?'

The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.

Whoever desires to found a nation and give it laws must begin by assuming that all men are bad and always ready to display their evil nature.