Ethical Issues Quotes

• We can't simply do our science and not worry about the ethical issues.

  Bill Joy

  Issues, Worry, Ethical

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• 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.

  Peter Singer

  Running, Thinking, Views

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• Talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might prefer to ignore, such as whether their conduct is ethical. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may simply close their minds to it. It does not follow that we ought to stop talking about these things.

  Richard Stallman

  Responsibility, Thinking, Talking

  "Why 'Free Software' Is Better Than 'Open Source'". www.gnu.org. 1998.

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• I have always written about subjects that engage me - questions I can't answer myself. They apparently tend to be big moral and ethical issues!

  Jodi Picoult

  Answers, Moral, Bigs

  Jodi Picoult (2010). “House Rules: A Novel”, p.592, Simon and Schuster

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• Reliable scientific knowledge is value free and has no moral or ethical value. Science tells us how the world is. ... Dangers and ethical issue arise only when science is applied as technology.

  Lewis Wolpert

  Knowledge, Science, Technology

  "Who's to blame?" by Lewis Wolpert, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2002.

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• On domestic policy, Donald Trump agreed with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Wall Street bailout, the TARP bailout of big bank. I think the government ought to be standing with mainstream, with working men and women. And then you put on top of that the ethical issues, whether it is refusing to release his taxes. And that's a real problem.

  Ted Cruz

  Wall, Real, Men

  "Face the Nation" with John Dickerson, www.cbsnews.com. February 28, 2016.

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• I was aware of what animals go through because I had driven animals to slaughter and I'd killed animals. And I was aware that there were certain ethical issues, but they weren't preying on my mind very heavily.

  Neal Barnard

  Animal, Mind, Driven

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.

  Susan Sontag

  Mass Culture, Minorities, May

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• The question of receiving the immigrant is an ethical issue that becomes a political issue.

  Ruben Martinez

  Political, Receiving, Immigrants

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• When you look at food as an ethical issue in the Christian tradition, you don't find very much about it. You don't find, as you do in the Jewish or Islamic or Hindu traditions, a lot of restrictions saying you can eat this but you can't eat that. But what you do find is the idea that gluttony is a sin and that it's something that we ought to be ashamed of.

  Peter Singer

  Christian, Islamic, Ideas

  "Chew the Right Thing". Interview with Dave Gilson, www.motherjones.com. May 3, 2006.

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• I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

  Peter Singer

  Thinking, Issues, Intuition

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• I would teach the world that science is the best way to understand the world and that for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Also, science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology - from medicine to industry.

  Lewis Wolpert

  Science, Technology, Medicine

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• I am, I must confess, suspicious of those who denounce others for having too much sex. At what point does a healthy amount become too much? There are, of course, those who suffer because their desire for sex has become compulsive; in their case the drive (loneliness, guilt) is at fault, not the activity as such. When morality is discussed I invariably discover, halfway into the conversation, that what is meant are not the great ethical questions but the rather dreary business of sexual habit, which to my mind is an aesthetic rather than an ethical issue.

  Edmund White

  Sex, Loneliness, Ethical Questions

  "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America". Book by Edmund White, 1980.

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• 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

  Philosophy, Issues, Rights

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• Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.

  Ezekiel Emanuel

  Suicide, Doctors, Years

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