Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

Right and wrong as moral principles do not change. They are applicable and reliable determinants whether the situations with which we deal are simple or complicated. There is always a right and wrong to every question which requires our solution.

You can't slice up morals.

I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.

There being no absolute and universal standard of right, terrorism must be held to be wrong in every case.

The nature of morality must be considered, and preferably before one is exposed to situations where a moral decision is required.

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

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.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.

Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson.

One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.

Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.

Tolerance cannot afford to have anything to do with the fallacy that evil may convert itself to good.

In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.

There were certain questions about the foundations of morals that advances in science all threaten to make more complicated.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that morality is not just a matter of opinion.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.