We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.
Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.
Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. … The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
The purpose of a moral philosophy is not to look delightfully strange and counterintuitive or to provide employment to bioethicists. The purpose is to guide our choices toward life, health, beauty, happiness, fun, laughter, challenge, and learning.
When we call something unfair or indecent or unconscionable or evil, when we speak of mercy and pity and compassion, those words have meaning, regardless of our particular faith or moral philosophy. They appeal to common standards we all are expected to understand and accept, standards without which we could not live any common life at all.
Propaganda replaces moral philosophy.
Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.
We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central.
One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.
Question with boldness even the existence of a god.
All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion.
The bourgeoisie, which far surpasses the proletariat in the completeness and irreconcilibility of its class consciousness, is vitally interested in imposing its moral philosophy upon the exploited masses. It is exactly for this purpose that the concrete norms of the bourgeois catechism are concealed under moral abstractions...The appeal to abstract norms is not a disinterested philosophic mistake but a necessary element in the mechanics of class deception.
Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.
Neither party has God on its side, a monopoly on good ideas, or a lock on any single fiscal, social, or moral philosophy.
Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing.
Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.
Elegant and lucid . . . a pitch-perfect clarion call, issued not with preachy hubris but from a deep place of humility, for awakening to the greatest rewards of living . . . The Road to Character is an essential read in its entirety-Anne Lamott with a harder edge of moral philosophy, Seneca with a softer edge of spiritual sensitivity, E. F. Schumacher for perplexed moderns.
It is of note that for a long time moral nihilism was a kind of unquestioned default position in analytic moral philosophy.
I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.
Modern sociology is virtually an attempt to take up the larger program of social analysis and interpretation which was implicit in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, but which was suppressed for a century by prevailing interest in the technique of the production of wealth.
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