Moral Arguments Quotes

The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight.

There are emotional and moral arguments against gambling and I don't negate them. But the statistics don't back up the emotional arguments, they back up the fact that people here need jobs.

Everybody is struggling for the good things of the world, and all the arguments to prove that they are not desirable are worse than wasted.

All political debates, from tax policy to abortion, draw on moral arguments that rest on religious premises.

How do you get governments to stop using child labor? Moral arguments work with moral people—and then you better have some economic incentives.

I am trying to get at the moral arguments and the ethical status of various attempts at enhancement, or genetic engineering, or the bid for designer children. But there are implications for society at large.

Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn't assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they're largely the consequence of the mind's attempt to make a rational decision.

If one is talking to a finance minister of a poor country, moral arguments tend not to get very far. But if you can argue that their country is going to grow 2 percent faster per year if they can just harness the power of the female half of the population more effectively, that is an argument they consider.

Societies have debated the severity of punishment for vile acts over millennia, with complex moral arguments on both sides of the question. But citizens and society should pay more attention to the trend of over-criminalisation of common human failings and frailties.