Alfred Jules Ayer Quotes

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

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

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.

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

The individual makes a clear effort to define moral values and principles that have validity and application apart from the authority of the groups of persons holding them and apart from the individual's own identification with the group.

No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

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

Kant taught us that we should follow just those rules of conduct that we would want everybody to follow. Few find this generalization of The Golden Rule a great help.

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.'

Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.

Right and wrong are not the product of census.

Without integrity and conscience we lose our freedom.

Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.

Faith teaches that there is a right and wrong beyond mere opinion or desire. Most importantly, it teaches us that freedom is not an end in itself, that how freedom is exercised matters as much as freedom itself

I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

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

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

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

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

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.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.