#ethics

The inconsistencies that haunt our relationships with animals also result from the quirks of human cognition. We like to think of ourselves as the rational species. But research in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics shows that our thinking and behavior are often completely illogical. In one study, for example, groups of people were independently asked how much they would give to prevent waterfowl from being killed in polluted oil ponds. On average, the subjects said they would pay $80 to save 2,000 birds, $78 to save 20,000 birds, and $88 to save 200,000 birds. Sometimes animals act more logically than people do; a recent study found that when picking a new home, the decisions of ant colonies were more rational than those of human house-hunters. What is it about human psychology that makes it so difficult for us to think consistently about animals? The paradoxes that plague our interactions with other species are due to the fact that much of our thinking is a mire of instinct, learning, language, culture, intuition, and our reliance on mental shortcuts. ↗

— Hal Herzog

#behavior #charity #cognition #decision-making #ethics

Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm. ↗

— Henry Miller

#beliefs #customs #doctrines #ethics #import

Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor. ↗

— Emily Post

#ethics #etiquette #everything #fork #honor

In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude. ↗

— Thomas Erskine

#grace #gratitude #new #new testament #religion

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product. ↗

— Peter Singer

#central #ethics #fairly #human #like

This House cannot function without an open, accountable, and independent ethics process; and the molestation of that process by the majority is an abuse of power that cannot stand. ↗

— Louise Slaughter

#abuse of power #accountable #cannot #ethics #function

Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. ↗

— Richard Stallman

#absolute #best #certainty #ethics #exist

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique. ↗

— James MacGregor Burns

#ethics #leadership #management #mere #politics

If you’re an Orthodox believer, then what sustains this framework is the obligation that you follow. But if you live in a democratic, liberal world whose motto is: “Make choices and manage your choices according to what is good for you,” then there is a built-in tension between that which connects and that which divides. Between the material and the intellectual or ethical. Materialism is not a dirty word, but in this tension between the individual and the material on the one hand, and the communal and the ethical on the other, we are at the end of an age in which the material and the individual are triumphing. ↗

— Kalid Gilad

#ethics-and-moral-philosophy #judaism #materialism #otherness #progressives

If you must give me a label, then label me a human being. I have no pride in being a human, though, because I have nothing to do with my becoming one. But, whereas animals don't have a rational code of ethics, I like to think I do. Which is where I am partisan. Moral partisanship is the reason for my "anger." And if I don't protest what needed to be protested, I might just as well be an animal. ↗

— Paul Krassner

#animal #ethics #human-being #protest #anger