Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

I think ethics is always there; it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.

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

Ethical and legal are not synonyms. ;

I have never obtained any ethical values from my scientific work.

Is everything right because the law allows it?

There is no ethics in general. There are only-eventually-ethics of processes by which we treat the possibilities of a situation.

One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical. Canonise 'business success,' and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes!

Science, by itself cannot, supply us with an ethic.

Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

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

While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland.

I've participated in meetings where there were concerns by ethical experts. There is no clear solution.

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.

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.

No, moral conscience is one thing, the law is another. We have to hold onto this difference.

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

It was a morally representative act. Helms withheld the information because it would have cost him his job.

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue ... Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

To see the line between being good and bad is really thin. It's not easy for anyone, not the manager, the players or the staff.

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.

The blind willingness to sacrifice people to truth, however, has always been the danger of an ethics abstracted from life.

Should I be the one to play God? We're both about the same age, but we grew up in different neighborhoods.

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.