Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Quotes

If you say morality is just what you like, you lose the metaphysical level of what in the history of philosophy is called 'categorical imperative.'

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.

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

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

You can't slice up morals.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Modern morality is all about perception.

You can't legislate morality.

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.

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

Moral principle is a looser bond than pecuniary interest.

Laws are often made to express collective ethical principles, to establish a climate of opinion …

It's immoral to steal, but you can take things.

Conscience is better served by a myth.

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion.

A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life.

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

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

I've no objection to morality, except that it's obsolete.

It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

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

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

Morality is truth in full bloom.