Moral Judgment Quotes

• Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Simple, Self, Fruit

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.804, Library of America

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• The discussion of the game of marbles seems to have led us into rather deep waters. But in the eyes of children the history of the game of marbles has quite as much importance as the history of religion or of forms of government. It Is a history, moreover, that is magnificently spontaneous; and it was therefore perhaps not entirely useless to seek to throw light on the child's judgment of moral value by a preliminary study of the social behaviour of children amongst themselves.

  Jean Piaget

  Children, Eye, Deep Water

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• Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.

  Milan Kundera

  Morality, Judgment, Novel

  "Testaments Betrayed". Book by Milan Kundera, 1995.

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• Moral judgment is not life-giving; love that transcends the boundaries of judgment as Jesus' love did, is.

  John Shelby Spong

  Jesus, Giving Love, Justice

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• I never make moral judgments; I'm not qualified to do so. I am not a censor, a priest, or a politician.

  Federico Fellini

  Moral, Censorship, Judgment

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• I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.

  Paul Bloom

  Moral, Judgment, Good Things

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the pompous "wisdom" of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error.

  Mark Twain

  Attitude, Past, Errors

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• The atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when his philosophy in fact precludes it.

  William A. Dembski

  Cheating, Atheist, Philosophy

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• The law that will work is merely the summing up in legislative form of the moral judgment that the community has already reached.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Law, Community, Political

  Woodrow Wilson (1980). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.

  H. L. Mencken

  Hands, Morality, Judgment

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

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• Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.

  Jacques Barzun

  Past, Judging, Style

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• Those indoctrinated by leftist thinking become largely incapable of making accurate moral judgments.

  Dennis Prager

  Thinking, Moral, Judgment

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• If you think that you are where you are just because you worked hard, it is easy to become self-righteous and make classist moral judgments about others.

  Charlotte Bunch

  Thinking, Self, Moral

  Charlotte Bunch, Nancy Myron (1974). “Class and feminism: a collection of essays from the Furies”

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• If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Men, Ideas, Judging

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• You can't escape moral judgment through a legal loop hole.

  Michael Josephson

  Moral, Judgment, Holes

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• The primary moral judgment on candidates and their positions is to be made in the light of their concern for protecting human life from conception to natural death.

  Francis George

  Light, Abortion, Moral

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• Why does everyone take for granted that we don't learn to grow arms, but rather, are designed to grow arms? Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of the development of moral systems; there's a biological endowment which in effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice, if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range.

  Noam Chomsky

  Justice, Facts, Doe

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• We need to go back to the way it was 30 years ago, when everybody had Grandma and Grandpa, and we were willing to pass moral judgments about right and wrong.

  Steven Tyler

  Grandma, Years, Grandpa

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• I'm not saying that atheists can't act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it's as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong.

  William A. Dembski

  Atheist, Morality, Judgment

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• I like moral judgment to emerge from the reader. We are being sold a very simplistic morality by our leaders at a time when nuance and understanding are at a premium.

  Hari Kunzru

  Leader, Understanding, Nuance

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• I began graduate school in the late 1980s, and my goal was to understand how morality varied across cultures and nations. I did some research comparing moral judgment in India and the U.S.A.

  Jonathan Haidt

  School, Goal, India

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• Since my moral system rests on my accepted version of the facts, he who denies my moral judgments or my version of the facts, is to me perverse, alien, dangerous. How shall I account for him? The opponent has always to be explained, and the last explanation that we ever look for is that he sees a different set of facts. Such an explanation we avoid, because it saps the very foundation of our own assurance that we have seen life steadily and seen it whole.

  Walter Lippmann

  Looks, Sap, Opponents

  Walter Lippmann (2012). “Public Opinion”, p.69, Courier Corporation

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• I don't believe there is any such definition, there is no such thing as evil, only moral judgments based on what society believes to be wrong behavior.

  Nikolas Schreck

  Believe, Evil, Definitions

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• Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the view­point of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.

  Milan Kundera

  Views, Evil, Judging

  "Testaments Betrayed". Book by Milan Kundera, 1995.

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• In all good westerns, the good guy is always a little bit questionable because he kind-of has to make moral judgments.

  Daniel Craig

  Guy, Littles, Moral

  "Capone saddles up with Daniel Craig to talk COWBOYS & ALIENS!!!". Interview with Capone, www.aintitcool.com. July 28, 2011.

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