David Berlinski Quotes

This demand follows from an insight that I was the first to articulate: that there are no moral facts.

It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.

The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil iteself.

Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants.

Moral relativism says morality is relative, not absolute, I want to show moral relativism, in its popular form, is logically incoherent.

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

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of value is really quite dangerous.

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

There is no moral absolute, and this leads us to situational ethics, which unfortunately is being taught in public schools all over America. This means that right and wrong is dependent upon the circumstances.

I think most people who call themselves relativists are not, in practice.

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

In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme.

Anyone who maintains absolute standards of good and evil is dangerous. As dangerous as a maniac with a loaded revolver.

In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.

The world has far too much morality.

You think that you can judge what's good or evil from whether you enjoy doing it or not. You think that evil is what always appears in the form of a temptation, while good is what you never spontaneously want to do. I think this is all total rubbish, if you don't mind my saying so.

Yet I have said over and over again that there is no "right" or "wrong" in the universe. A thing is not intrinsically right or wrong. A thing simply is.

One of the great problems of philosophy, is the relationship between the realm of knowledge and the realm of values. Knowledge is what is; values are what ought to be. I would say that all traditional philosophies up to and including Marxism have tried to derive the "ought" from the "is." My point of view is that this is impossible, this is a farce.

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

In logic, there are no morals.

Good or bad is a matter of perspective. I met an immortal hunami once, a man called William Shakespeare, who wrote that there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Reality is: Should people steal in this world? Yes. How do I know they should? They all do.

I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in reality. And reality has a well-known liberal bias.