Peter Singer Quotes

There are many religions, but there is only one morality.

The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights.

Surely, nothing can be more dangerous than the doctrine that the moral obligations of men change with the latitude and longitude of a place.

The highest virtue here may be least in another world.

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

It's simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.

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.

Morality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.

Morality is not defined and cannot be defined by individual choice.

There is only one morality, as there is only one geometry.

How are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all ethical ideas? Virtue, if it implies anything at all, implies an ethical absolute. A person whose idea of what is proper varies from day to day can be admired for his broadmindedness, but not for his virtue.

Either what we hold to be right and good and true IS right and good and true, for all mankind, or we're just another robber tribe.

Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.

Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.

No civilisation can claim to have a monopoly on universal values and no one can claim to be always faithful to his own values.

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

Our duties and responsibilities as human beings must be shown to be so incontrovertible that even atheists must recognize them. There are ultimate taboos.

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

The U.S. is not the holder of truth.

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.

What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another; and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty.

If something is really outrageous, it doesn't matter if it is one culture, or another, it's outrageous.

We can only judge what is right and proper by our own standards of right and wrong, which differs widely from the whites if I have been properly informed. The whites may do wrong all their lives, and then if they are sorry for it when they die, all is well, but with us it is different. We must continue to do good throughout our lives ... If the Great Spirit wished us to believe and do as the whites, He could easily change our opinions so that we could see, think, and act as they do... I believe that every man must make his own path.

An ethic is not international until it is internationally acknowledged and practiced as the rule, exceptions to which are visited with disgrace if not with punishment.

I'm not a moral relativist, I do think at the end of the day there's right and wrong, there's good intentions, and then there's bad paths that you can go on even if you have good intentions and we believe that.