Stanley Kubrick Quotes

Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution, or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

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.

The natural law is an instrument for progress, not a weapon of revolution.

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.

We need a moral philosophy which can speak significantly of Freud and Marx and out of which aesthetic and political views can be generated. We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now, can once again be made central.

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.

I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.

We need an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without.

Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.

The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage.

What we need is something, a definition of a human, starting from the ground up, so that the suitable moral structure that goes around it makes sense. The context has to come from the human first, rather than bits and pieces of fragments of old religion and all of the old moral superstructure, whatever it used to be.

Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgements of all kinds remain necessary.

Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil.

Mitchell claimed that her materialist view leads to “humbleness.” But it is not humbling; it is dehumanizing. It essentially reduces humans to robots.

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how people work. So I think most moral philosophy is disconnected from the species that we happen to be. In fact, they like it that way. Many moral philosophers insist that morality grows out of our rationality, that it applies to any rational being anywhere in the universe, and that it is not based on contingent or coincidental facts about our evolution.

Immoral: Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If mans notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from and nowise dependent on, their consequences-then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.

To be good to the vile is to throw water into the sea.

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.

Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.

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.

All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.

He who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.