Kenan Malik Quotes

One might rationally argue that individual human beings should be free choose what moral behavior they approve of, and which they don't, subject to the constraints of the law.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.

If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself.

Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product.

What influences our behavior, and what our level of responsibility is, are very complex issues. And anytime we try to make this simplistic, we don't serve people well.

Philosophically I am, or at least have been, a follower of Sartre. I am very interested in the choices we make, or don't make, in life-defining matters. That moment of 'angst' and its consequences can be such a cruel thing.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

Whether it's trivial or important, every choice has a moral aspect to it to a certain degree.

You just have to do what you know is right.

An animal takes freely anything that it wishes: it commits no sin and is not held responsible for its action because it knows no better. But as soon as the idea of 'mine' and 'thine' has been imprinted upon our consciousness, then also the responsibility comes.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

My early research - I'm a social psychologist, and my early research was on how people make moral judgments. When I entered the field in 1987, everybody was looking at moral reasoning - how do kids reason about a moral dilemma? Should a guy steal a drug to save his wife's life?

I think that unless you can take judgments of right and wrong like an automaton, you must have emotions because that is our only way of moral guidance.

Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood.

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.