#ethics

It's daft, locking us up," said Nanny. "I'd have had us killed." "That's because you're basically good," said Magrat. "The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#ethics #evil #good #philosophy-of-science #sociology

Scientific theories never dictate human values, but they can often cast new light on ethical issues. From a sexual selection viewpoint, moral philosophy and political theory have mostly been attempts to shift male human sexual competitiveness from physical violence to the peaceful accumulation of wealth and status. The rights to life, liberty, and property are cultural inventions that function, in part, to keep males from killing and stealing from one another while they compete to attract sexual partners. ↗

— Geoffrey Miller

#evolution #politics #sex #life

The answer can't be found in books - or be solved by bringing it to other people. Not unless you want to remain a child all your life. You've got to find the answer inside you - feel the right thing to do. Charlie, you've got to learn to trust yourself ↗

— Daniel Keyes

#choice #ethics #life

Without ethics, science would be cruelty. ↗

— Nenia Campbell

#humanity #science #science-fiction #science

To be ethical is to endeavor to find one's proper place in the larger scheme of things rather than to seek to assert human superiority over the natural world. ↗

— Gary Steiner

#humanity #morality #speciesism #life

Most of us care about one another. Human beings have considerably more in common with one another than they do differences. One’s religion, political persuasion, family, financial and social status, or vocation does not hamper the common thread of personal decency running through most of humankind. ↗

— Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

#empathy #ethics #family

We love dogs and eat cows not because dogs and cows are fundamentally different--cows, like dogs, have feelings, preferences, and consciousness--but because our perception of them is different. ↗

— Melanie Joy

#carnism #cows #dogs #ethics #meat

Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#ethics #humor #vegetarian #vegetarianism #humor

There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules ↗

— Albert Camus

#morality #ethics

I don't believe vegans (or vegetarians) who still get their (packaged, preservative/chemical-ridden) food from industrial food system have any righteous ground to stand on, nor do I think a deep look at the sentient life of plants or the true environmental impact of agriculture permits them any comfortable distance from cruelty. Everything in this world eats something else to survive, and that something else, whether running on blood or chlorophyll, would always rather continue to live rather than become sustenance for another. No animal wants to be penned up and milked, or caged and harvested, and you've never seen plants growing in regimented lines of their own accord. ↗

— Brian Awehali

#cruelty #ethics #food #plant-intelligence #veganism