Walter Lippmann Quotes

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

As to ethics, unfortunately, we are still at sea. We never did have any popular base for what little ethics we knew, except the religious theories, and now that our faith is shaken in those theories we cannot account for ethics at all. It is no wonder we behave badly, we are literally ignorant of the laws of ethics, which is the simplest of sciences, the most necessary, the most continuously needed. The childish misconduct of our 'revolted youth' is quite equaled by that of older people, and neither young nor old seem to have any understanding of the reasons why conduct is 'good' or 'bad.

My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues.

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.

Contemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all.

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

Your ideas about right and wrong are just that-ideas. They are the thoughts which form the shape and create the substance of Who You Are. There would be only one reason to change any of these; only one purpose in making an alteration: if you are not happy with Who You Are.

The moral earth, too, is round! The moral earth, too, has its antipodes! The antipodes, too, have their right to exist! There is still another world to be discovered--and more than one! Set sail, you philosophers!

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

Tolerance cannot afford to have anything to do with the fallacy that evil may convert itself to good.

A perverted moral judgment belongs to the dogmatic system.

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.

You can't slice up morals.

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

There are a few dogmas and double standards and really regrettable exports from philosophy that have confounded the thinking of scientists on the subject of morality.

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

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.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

How we become moral and understand good and bad, and how we overcome our impulse towards violence, is all really important to me, as a person.

They all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett Even I. Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief For the rest of us death would be relief.

Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.

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

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