Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If people are prepared to eat locally and seasonally, then they probably do pretty well in terms of environmental impact.
Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.
At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using.
To make sustainable progress in reducing extreme poverty will require improvements in both the quantity and quality of aid.
Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.
I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature.
Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion.
There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.
Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.
Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.
Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.
We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves.
If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate.
Open government is, within limits, an ideal that we all share. U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed it when he took office in January 2009.
An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.
The traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological and demographic developments.
If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library.
Knowledge is generally considered a good thing; so, presumably, knowing more about how the U.S. thinks and operates around the world is also good.
I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.
Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.
Looking back on my career, I think I've been extremely fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in order to have the influence that I did.
We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives.
If they [animals] were really to get the equal consideration that I believe they should, we wouldn't have commercial animal production in this country.
History is not going to look kindly on us if we just keep our head in the sand on armed autonomous robotics issue because it sounds too science fiction.
We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, "Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box." This is the story of humans on every problem.
Sci-fi is often a metaphor. I think it's more the themes and questions that science fiction raises rather than the exact predictions that should guide us.
Bush is morally a universalist. For instance, he says the freedom is good, the same thing is good, all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist.
The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true.
As we realize that more and more things have global impact, I think we're going to get people increasingly wanting to get away from a purely national interest.
We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.
Animals, or at least those who are conscious and capable of suffering or enjoying their lives, are not things for us to use in whatever way we find convenient.
If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.
Those who purchase meat, fur, and leather have no right to be shielded from the sights and sounds of the slaughterhouses from which these products were produced.
If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?
Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species.
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.
Then I think the sense of it being one community breaks down; but if you know instantly and respond within twenty-four hours, it's a very different sort of situation.
If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own?
Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that.
When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain, they behave in ways suggestive of pain, and the change in behaviour may last several hours.
So I think ethics is the broader thing that's less focused on prohibitions and is more perhaps looking at principles and questions and ideas about how to live your life.
Putting the AR movement directly in opposition to the environmental movement, which should be our natural allies in fighting human arrogance and domination of the planet.
The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.
If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end.
If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little.
Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning.
Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.
We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals.
In the real world, 90% of the money spent on medical research is focused on conditions that are responsible for just 10% of the deaths and disability caused by diseases globally.
Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.