Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

Control thought-forms are the basis of our deepest moral crisis.

There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.

At times, morality can be dismissed as a matter of personal conscience, no matter how widespread its acceptance. Ethics, on the other hand, arises from societal or group commitments to principia of behavior.

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim 'never say never' is one of the most important in ethics.

There is no right in acting.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

I have learned that a clear conscience, or a legal opinion, does not make you ethically bullet proof.

That which is morally wrong will never be politically right.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It's very thin, it's made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair.

The hazing experience and then the subsequent participation in the group forces its members to maintain the status quo and traditions at all costs. It demands mindlessness and unquestioned loyalty, resulting in boring people who have little ability to think for themselves or have an opposing viewpoint from those who have the most social power.

We are the most amazing creatures that this world has ever produced, but we seem to also have this herd mentality; we seem to be the most stupid, also.

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

We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.

Ethics is a fluid term ...It's the standards by which a civilized society lives.

We are all responsible for our actions and our failures to act.

All a man can betray is his conscience.

What we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words of command.

His conduct still right with his argument wrong.

Morality is a social necessity

What is done cannot be effaced. We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us ...

Conscience is known to be adequate in individuals; in large numbers little is to be expected of it.