Medical ethics is a fascinating discipline, as it deals with issues replete with complex philosophical, moral, and ethical considerations that are rarely black or white. — Gad Saad
Ethics is the new competitive environment — Peter Robinson
More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency. — Peter Singer
We live in a time when complex ethical questions are easily subordinated to the demands of efficiency, profit maximization, and maintenance or furthering of political power. — Randal Marlin
Ethics is not just something that people worry about and discuss; it's actually something that needs to be integrated into the process of scientific discovery and technological development. — Jennifer Doudna
Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers — Kiran Bedi
Is it more ethical to edit embryos or to screen a lot of embryos and throw them away? I don't know the answer. — Jennifer Doudna
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. — Potter Stewart
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
Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions. — Naval Ravikant
Ethical teaching is weakened if it is tied up with dogmas that will not bear examination. — Margaret E. Knight
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. — Bertrand Russell
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
Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values. — Arthur Levitt Jr
Short Ethical Questions Quotes
Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values. — Arthur Levitt
Embryonic stem cell research is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards. — George W. Bush
History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. — B. R. Ambedkar
If being ethical were profitable everybody would do it. — Naval Ravikant
When our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. — Barack Obama
Knowledge is having the right answer. Intelligence is asking the right questions.
Ethical Dilemma Quotes
Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it. — Price Pritchett
I don't feel any ethical dilemma when I write. In my memoir, I was able to write with candor about the two most difficult people in the world to write with candor about - mom and dad. Everything else is downhill from there. — Said Sayrafiezadeh
While free software was meant to force developers to lose sleep over ethical dilemmas, open source software was meant to end their insomnia. — Evgeny Morozov
The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
Science is important, but so is ethics, so is balancing life. To destroy life to save life - it's one of the real ethical dilemmas that we face. — George W. Bush
Grading creative writing is always an ethical dilemma. But what you brought up about grading personal stories versus the research paper is of course a truly volatile issue in teaching memoir or the personal essay, because there's no pretense that the narrator is a character. — Debra Monroe
One of the richest countries in the world - the United States of America - is facing a real ethical dilemma in terms of providing equitable access to health care. — Mary Robinson
The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask, is a fool for life.
Intuitive Eaters march to their inner hunger signals, and eat whatever they choose without experiencing guilt or an ethical dilemma. — Evelyn Tribole
Identify the moral dilemma driving the novel. the successful novel will haunt a reader because it deals with some ethical or moral dilemma that makes the reader wonder what he or she would do in the protagonist's place. — Rick Riordan
Ethical Issues Quotes
The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture. — Gaylord Nelson
There’s policy issues like facial recognition and how to treat images of people that we need to address and work through. We need to figure out, like, where the sort of danger zones are — where the red lines are — and then clarify that over time. — Greg Brockman
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don't think it's an ethical or moral issue, or even that people are stupid, but I do feel like as a culture things are out of balance, perverted, and inverted. Things that are ridiculous are worshipped, and things that are important are ridiculed. I think that's something worth thinking about. — Ian MacKaye
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
Today, unfortunately, the right to vote seems to have become a partisan issue. Democrats seek to guarantee and expand voting rights. Republicans try to undermine and suppress voting rights. — Donna Brazile
There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior. — Derek Bok
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
Ethical Quotes
Live by the creed that a strong work ethic, playing by the rules, and doing things the right way will bring about opportunities for success and, ultimately, happiness. — Nick Saban
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. — John F. Kennedy
Apart from values and ethics which I have tried to live by, the legacy I would like to leave behind is a very simple one - that I have always stood up for what I consider to be the right thing, and I have tried to be as fair and equitable as I could be. — Ratan Tata
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant
Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference. — Harry S. Truman
How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne
No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. — Aneurin Bevan
Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better place?" It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it better?" To that there is an answer. — Leo Buscaglia
We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. — Bryan Stevenson
American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. — Edward R. Murrow
Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment. — Amartya Sen
I heard Russell Simmons say that, 'people have million dollar dreams with a minimum wage work ethic.' Basically, everybody wanna be rich but don't nobody wanna work for it. — Yo Gotti
Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained. — W. H. Auden
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. — Albert Schweitzer
Unethical Quotes
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and unethical. — Amartya Sen
What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public. — Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation. — Dianne Feinstein
While that amendment failed, human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner. — Mike Pence
Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization. — Daniel H. Pink
Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. — Vladimir Nabokov
There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. — Kurt Huber
I consider your conduct unethical and lousy. — Peter Arno
In the year since we brought things into the open with a clean breath of fresh air at City Hall, we have learned about corrupt spending practices and unethical conflicts of interest that waste your money... and keep Dallas from being the great city of our dreams. — Laura Miller
I think "immoral" is probably the wrong word to use...I prefer the word "unethical." — Ivan Boesky
Legal Ethics Quotes
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government. — Tacitus
Considering the absence of legal coercion, the surprising thing is that men have for so long, and, on the whole, so reliably, adhered to what we might call the breadwinner ethic. — Barbara Ehrenreich
The right to be able to speak openly and confidentially to another is, at times, codified legally if not ethically. — Gad Saad
Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal. — Aldo Leopold
Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right. Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right. — Marian Wright Edelman
A corporation like Enron is a person with a legal identity and no ethical accountability. — Doug Berry
I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions. — Sidney Poitier
When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists. — Craig Reucassel
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that contains moral, ethical, and legal truisms that any person of any religion or even an atheist can recognize and appreciate. — Cliff Stearns
My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Ethical Behavior Quotes
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce
Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain. — Robert K. Greenleaf
Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards. — Ted Koppel
It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly. — Margaret Mead
But you cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It's the fence that keeps out the goats that will eat all the young shoots in your garden. — Jon Kabat-Zinn
Don't make misrepresentations to anyone you deal with. If you believe the other person may have misunderstood you, correct any misunderstanding you find exists. Honesty is integral to ethical behavior, and trustworthiness is essential for good, lasting relationships. — Buck Rodgers
Ethical and responsible behavior needs to become the cornerstone of corporate behavior — Manmohan Singh
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative. — Jean Cocteau
A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic. — E. O. Wilson
Ethical Conduct Quotes
I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives. A disastrous by-product of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. We are guilty. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits. — Albert Einstein
Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. — William Lloyd Garrison
If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. — Dee Hock
The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide. — Alexander Maclaren
We have been quick to assume rights to use water but slow to recognize obligations to preserve and protect it... In short, we need a water ethic-a guide to right conduct in the face of complex decisions about natural systems we do not and cannot fully understand. — Sandra Postel
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe. — Albert Schweitzer
Ethical conduct is something that becomes inherent in an organization over a long period of time. — Lee R. Raymond
A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct — Aldo Leopold
I have been committed to carrying out my duties... in accordance with both the letter and spirit of all applicable rules of ethics and canons of conduct. — Samuel Alito
I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct. — Carl Sandburg
Ethical Standards Quotes
It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated. — Grigori Perelman
Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways. — Franz Boas
There is no such thing as business ethics. There is only one kind -- you have to adhere to the highest standards. — Marvin Bower
You cannot choose your battlefield,
The Gods do that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew. — Nathalia Crane
There are no "standards of Right". Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its own orbit. To hell with "moral principle"; there is no such thing. — Aleister Crowley
One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical. Canonise 'business success,' and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes! — Ida Tarbell
But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence. — Price Pritchett
Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena. — H. Jay Dinshah
I ask that all Americans demonstrate in their personal and public lives... the high ethical standards that are essential to good character and to the continued success of our Nation. — William J. Clinton
A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people. — B. R. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Ethical Values Quotes
Solidarity is based on the principle that we are willing to put ourselves at risk to protect each other. — Starhawk
Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life. — Werner Heisenberg
Solidarity is not an act of charity, but mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objective. — Samora Machel
The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing. — Michael Jordan
When a hunter is in a tree stand with high moral values and with the proper hunting ethics and richer for the experience, that hunter is 20 feet closer to God. — Fred Bear
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken
The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress — Irving Janis
For we have built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression and these must be altered at the same time that we alter the living condition which are the result of those structures. For the master's tool will never dismantle the master's house. — Audre Lorde
In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving. — William Baldwin
What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
Ethical and moral questions and how we answer them may determine whether primal scenes will continue to be a source of joy and comfort to future generations. The decisions are ours and we have to search our minds and souls for the right answers... We must be eternally vigilant, embrace the broad concept of an environmental ethic to survive. — Sigurd F. Olson
Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency which suggests that even the question Have we anything to eat? will be answered not in material but in ethical terms. — Hugo Ball
The private sector can go forward, if it must, with destruction of embryos for questionable and ethically challenged science. But spend the people's money on proven blood cord, bone marrow, germ cell, and adult cell research. — Roger Wicker
A civilized society must count animals as worthy of moral consideration and ethical treatment. The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
Many business leaders are asking fundamental questions about what business they're in, why they are doing it and how it can be used as a means of healing human and natural communities. — Amory Lovins
I find this in all these places I've been travelling - from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil - there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with a kind of absence of discussion of questions of justice and ethics and of values. — Michael Sandel
As a leader, these attributes - confidence, perseverance, work ethic and good sense - are all things I look for in people. I also try to lead by example and create an environment where good questions and good ideas can come from anyone. — Heather Bresch
I think that whatever we express in terms of the potential truth is above all else about mobilizing ourselves for ourselves. We learn about ourselves as individuals. Identification with Palestine is universal and not restricted to geographic boundaries. It's a question of moral and ethical positions vis-à-vis all the injustices that surround us. — Elia Suleiman
The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? — Dave Barry
I'm somewhat antagonistic towards these various projects that charge $250,000 per person for the ability to be weightless for 3 minutes after being brought up from earth. I think there are such better uses for that money that i seriously question the ethics of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on space flights for extremely wealthy people. — Arthur Frommer
The question is where are business ethics and morality if one of the parties wants to dishonor a binding contract, just because in retrospect it realizes it could perhaps have got a better price! — Anil Ambani
[W]hen the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions. — Karl Mannheim
Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal. — Robert Sheckley
Because ethics is fundamentally about questioning the ends, the goals and aims of our actions, we must come back to the rules and ask why. So we must return to the philosophy of law, the raison d'etre and the point of what we're asked to do. It's not easy, it's very demanding and it needs intellectual courage. — Tariq Ramadan
Our model of the cosmos must be as inexhaustible as the cosmos. A complexity that includes not only duration but creation, not only being but becoming, not only geometry but ethics. It is not the answer we are after, but only how to ask the question. — Ursula K. Le Guin
Government by the people for the people becomes meaningless unless it includes major economic decision-making by the people for the people. This is not simply an economic matter. In essence it is an ethical and moral question, for whoever takes the important economic decisions in society ipso facto determines the social priorities of that society. — Jimmy Reid
You must question a code of ethics that never impedes your progress. — Robert Breault
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
A big ethical question is what happens after people stop using the device. Does it degrade the environment? Could it have been designed so it would actually be good for the environment? — Donald Norman
Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves an essential spiritual and ethical question: Are we the kind of people who take everything for ourselves and leave nothing for others, or do the angels of our better nature still live? I believe the angels are still alive. — James Balog
The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics. — Sam Harris
Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability - terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons - or should we focus on global climate instability - droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse. — Van Jones
A big ethical question is what happens after people stop using the device. Does it degrade the environment? Could it have been designed so it would actually be good for the environment? — Donald A. Norman
I think morality is more important than ever before. As we gain more power, the question of what we do with it becomes more and more crucial, and we are very close to really having divine powers of creation and destruction. The future of the entire ecological system and the future of the whole of life is really now in our hands. And what to do with it is an ethical question and also a scientific question. — Andrew Solomon
One ... aspect of the case for World War II is that while it was still a shooting affair it taught us survivors a great deal about daily living which is valuable to us now that it is, ethically at least, a question of cold weapons and hot words. — M. F. K. Fisher
[Michael] Brown's mom, Lesley McSpadden, is the latest African American mother whose tear-streaked face forces the nation to remember the name of yet another unarmed black teenager gunned down under questionable circumstances. — Jonathan Capehart
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
And I think that what is of concern is that they seem to be bringing skills from the scientific world into the interrogation room in a way that begs a lot of questions about whether it's ethical. — Jane Mayer
I confess to being something of a philosophical butterfly. The world is full of so many interesting questions, and although my greatest passion is for some form of applied ethics, that leaves me with oodles of possibilities, many of which I have never had the time or opportunity to explore in great depth. — John Kleinig
My question is about the head of the Office of Government Ethics. Is he acting ethically when he sent out nine tweets praising Donald Trump saying that his plan was brilliant. How did he come to that conclusion? And how does come to his current conclusions having never done an investigation and never looked at the paperwork in the point where he can actually come to a reasonable conclusion?I think that's unethical. — Jason Chaffetz
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
Most people don't have any association in their minds with what they do and with ethics. They think they somehow moved past the questions of morality or values or ethics, and that's something that I've never imagined to be true. — Cathy O'Neil
Kant's description of most ethical duties reads more like a description of moral virtues and vices. Once we see this, we see that Kantian ethics is indeed a kind of virtue ethics, and that it does not "divide the heart from the head" (to anticipate one of your later questions) but instead recognizes the deep truth that reason and emotion are not opposites. — Allen W. Wood
I suppose I get a lot of questions about Tiger. But Tiger Woods is a tremendous talent. He plays well. He has a great work ethic. He's probably as talented of a golfer as anyone who's ever played. — Jack Nicklaus
You can understand why the original framers of judicial ethics thought it would be undignified and would call into question the legitimacy of the judicial decision-making process to have mudslinging by judges, but the way that we hobble people of enormous integrity from defending themselves is, I think, deeply problematic in states where you have an elected judiciary, or a judge is subject to recall. — Deborah Rhode
It's true that to speak of an ethic of giftedness, which is very much the ethic that I deploy in raising questions about designer children and genetic engineering - an appreciation of the giftedness of the child or the giftedness of life does have religious resonance, because a great many religious traditions emphasize the sense in which the good things in life are not all our own doing; they are gifts from God. — Michael Sandel
They [teachers] beat it right out of me. Or they beat it into me and educated it out of me. I don't know; that's an interesting question. The Catholic schools required work, so I think that may have been where the work ethic came from, in answer to the question of how my character may have been shaped. — William Mapother
We should absolutely be concerned with ethical questions - to exactly the same degree as everyone else. It's never my intention to sneak any kind of sermon into a story - I've got no business preaching, and besides, that kind of thing plays poorly in fiction, always has. — Roy Kesey
Journalism and the questions of journalistic ethics, and why certain stories are put on the air, when, how and for what reasons, are big questions in our culture and society. — Thomas Sadoski
The ethical argument regarding abortion hinges on the question of when life begins. Some believe life begins at forty. — Kevin Nealon
As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. — Ronald Reagan
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of ethical questions quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about ethical questions to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of ethical questions quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.