Robert Nozick Quotes

The end never justifies the means because there is no end; there are only means.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

In any decision for action, when you have to make up your mind what to do, there is always a 'should' involved, and this cannot be worked out from, 'If I do this, what will happen?' alone.

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

That's always been my philosophy. - I've never thought of the consequences of a necessary action.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.

For the lesser evil is reckoned a good in comparison with the greater evil, since the lesser evil is rather to be chosen than the greater. .

If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible? If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?

The purpose of a moral philosophy is not to look delightfully strange and counterintuitive or to provide employment to bioethicists. The purpose is to guide our choices toward life, health, beauty, happiness, fun, laughter, challenge, and learning.

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.

In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another; is there any harm in letting it alone?

Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.

What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about 'right' and 'wrong,' or 'good' and 'evil,' and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?

The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.

A moral point of view too often serves as a substitute for understanding in technological matters.

The balancing of present wants against the future is really the central problem of ethics.

The cause of all human evils is the not being able to apply general principles to special cases.

Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.

I'll do what I can to promote the greater good. If you can harm one person to save 1,000, I'm gonna do it every f**king time.

It is sometimes rational to do what is wrong, and sometimes irrational to do what is right

Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences.

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that.

I think in general the ends do not justify the means.

It is safer to do most men harm than to do them too much good.