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Moral Dilemma Quotes

Browse 39 quotes about Moral Dilemma.

Moral Dilemma Quotes

“Oppenheimer, haunted by his leading role in the first use of atomic weapons, understood only one aspect of prudence. His longing not to do evil himself blinded him to the need to ward off the evil of others. This painfully knotted man hoped with one swipe of his moral sword to rid himself of the impossible tangle and to be clear and simple for once in his life. But being Oppenheimer could never be as easy as that. For Oppenheimer embodied two of the highest human types, the theoretical man described by Aristotle as god-like for living in the mind, among changeless truths, and the paragon of Machiavellian virtue, god-like in commanding the power of life and death over other men. No theoretical man before Oppenheimer had known such lordly power. In certain high moments he approached that Aristotelian theoretical purity which lives for the joys of knowing the world, whatever it might prove to be; in another light he thrilled at that Machiavellian power and its attendant renown; in contrary moods he reviled himself for the suffering he brought into the world, and ached to renounce his distinction and to be merely another man among men. Perhaps no theoretical man can be equal to such a burden: to feel knowledge as power when one’s mind reshapes the world irrevocably, to see the light of truth as the agent of some dark majesty, is not grace but ordeal. Oppenheimer’s agony tore him open from top to bottom.”

EvilPowerBurdenComplicatedAgonyPrudenceMoral DilemmaAtomic WeaponsOppenheimerWorld ChangingAristotelian Theoretical PurityMachiavellian Virtue
Author:Algis Valiunas
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“In a Vietnamese village, as reported in a recent TV program, gas bombs had been thrown into holes and huts to drive out of hiding any remaining Viet Cong. Only women and children came out of the holes. One child, about two, routed out with his mother, sat on her lap looking up at a large Negro marine. The side of the child's face was dirty with the smoke and soot from the smoke bomb; he had been crying. He looked up with an expression of bewilderment, now beyond crying, not knowing what to make of such a world. But the camera shifted immediately to the black American marine looking down at the child, commanding and somewhat hideous in his battle uniform. He had exactly the same expression: bewilderment, his eyes wide as he stared down at the child, his mouth slightly ajar; but his stare did not move, remaining fixed on that child. What should he make of a world in which he does this? While the announcer of the program rattled on about how the gas is harmful for only ten minutes and then leaves no deleterious effects, the cameraman kept his camera focused on the face of the marine. Was the marine recalling that he too had once been a child in some Southern state, driven from caves and huts where he had been playing, recognizing that he too was of a race held to be 'inferior'? That he too was once a child in a world at which he could only look out and up, a world causing pain for reasons no child can begin to fathom? Does he see himself in this child, see his bewilderment as a black child?”

WarCompassionIdentityEmpathyReflectionInnocenceVulnerabilityHuman ConnectionMoral DilemmaShared Humanity
Book:Love and will
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“The career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who headed the Manhattan Project, draws such questions to a focus that resembles the bead of a laser-gunsight on a victim’s breastbone. It was Oppenheimer whom the public lionized as the brains behind the bomb; who agonized about the devastation his brilliance had helped to unleash; who hoped that the very destructiveness of the new “gadget,” as the bombmakers called their invention, might make war obsolete; and whose sometime Communist fellow-traveling and opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb — a weapon a thousand times more powerful than the bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki — brought about his political disgrace and downfall, which of course have marked him in the eyes of some as all the more heroic, a visionary persecuted by warmongering McCarthyite troglodytes. His legacy, of course, is far more complicated.”

MoralityLegacyDisgraceLegendaryHiroshima And NagasakiMoral DilemmaBrilliant MindsOppenheimerH Bomb
Author:Algis Valiunas
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“Considerable educational effort has now and again been made to develop in students the ability to reason their ways through complex moral dilemmas, and to formulate morally enlightened choices as a result. But there is no evidence that, once having acquired such moral reasoning skills, these students will behave any better than their morally untutored peers when it comes to the willingness of the great human majority, when circumstance are “right,” to engage in state-authorized aggression and killing in wars, participation in judicial executions, perpetration of school and adult bullying, domestic abuse, endorsement of torture in the name of national security, depredation of the world's natural resources and biodiversity in the interests of human development and financial gain—a list that could be continued at some length. The moral bridge is a bridge that relatively few cross automatically and naturally, from morally reasoned judgement to moral conduct.”

PhilosophyMoralityEthicsMoral DilemmaEthical DilemmaEthical TheoryEthicist
Book:Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning
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“But here am I, riding this steel behemoth – the most ominous killing machine ever conceived; a weapon of war with the innocuous name of carrier. It transports our crew and air wing personnel to the Oriental dens of sin. It takes us to the blood-soaked terrain of the Vietnamese. It is, in a single thought, one of the most obscene but amazingly brilliant products of human ingenuity.”

WeaponsNavyVietnam WarIngenuityCarrierMoral DilemmaAircraft CarrierKilling MachineAir War
Book:God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of a 20-Year-Old Navy Enlisted Man in the Vietnam Air War - 1967
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“[Father Aberforth]: “...Have you figured out what you’re going to do with this married man of yours?” ... “I’m not here to judge you, girl. You think you’re the first sheep to wander out of the fold because greener pastures beckon?” He reached for his tea. “At least you show some originality. Most priests who dabble in adultery go for the music director or one of the warden’s wives. The town’s chief of police—that’s novel. Not too bright, but novel.”

Moral DilemmaUnintended Humor
Book:All Mortal Flesh
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“You throw the lever or don’t, hit one person with the trolley or let five other innocents die, and maybe that’s murder, and maybe that’s something that’s going to stay on your conscience or stain your soul for all eternity. But someone put you there, alone and helpless, in front of the lever. Someone set you up, someone tied those people to the tracks.”

PhilosophyJusticeResponsibilityEthicsGuiltManipulationPowerlessnessMoral DilemmaMoral InjuryTrolley Problem
Book:There Is No Antimemetics Division
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“One of the great weaknesses of the progressive, as distinct from the religious, mind, is that it has no awareness of truth as such; only of truth in terms of enlightened expediency. The contrast is well exemplified in two exact contemporaries - Simone Weil and Simone de Beauvoir; both highly intelligent and earnestly disposed. In all the fearful moral dilemmas of our time, Simone Weil never once went astray, whereas Simone de Beauvoir, with I am sure the best of intentions, has found herself aligned with apologists for some of the most monstrous barbarities and falsehoods of history.”

MindWellsTwoFoundTermReligiousMoralAwarenessWeaknessIntelligentIntentionOur TimeEnlightenedProgressiveFearfulContrastFalsehoodDilemmaMonstrousExpediencyBarbarityMoral DilemmaHighly Intelligent
Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
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“Television is a constant stream of fact, opinions, lies, moral dilemmas, plots: an infinitely complex and sophisticated torrent of information. How could it not make you cleverer? The only people who ever thought television rotted the brain and made kids dumb were those with a vested interest in other ways of learning, or those who were intellectually insecure, usually about books.”

PeopleWayMadeBookFactsKidsLyingInterestBrainMoralOpinionInformationTelevisionConstantComplexesDumbStreamsPlotSophisticatedInsecureDilemmaVested InterestsMoral DilemmaInterest In Others
Author:A. A. Gill
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“Pure, hard-core liberals believe in a superior race. They think they're it. They believe they're more intelligent than the general run of mankind, better suited than the little people are to manage the little people's lives. They think they have the one true vision, the ability to solve all the moral dilemmas of the century. They prefer big government because that is the first step to totalitarianism, toward unquestioned rule by the elite. And of course they see themselves as the elite.”

PeopleThinkingFirstsBelieveLittlesHardBigsGovernmentRunningCoursesAbilityRaceLibertyMoralVisionStepsMankindCenturyPureIntelligentSolveCoreSuperiorsManageElitesFirst StepsTotalitarianismDilemmaBig GovernmentHard CoreMoral DilemmaTrue Vision
Author:Dean Koontz
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“Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!”

LoveAmericaSongLevelsMoralGrowing UpGrowingAdviceTvsGrewGrew UpFemaleHollywoodEarsCuriousGossipGood LifeAdsOperaSoapColumnsDilemmaCosmeticsLiabilitySoap OperasAdvertisersCatechismMoral Dilemma
Book:Fear of Flying: 40th Anniversary Edition
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“Opera once was an important social instrument - especially in Italy. With Rossini and Verdi, people were listening to opera together and having the same catharsis with the same story, the same moral dilemmas. They were holding hands in the darkness. That has gone. Now perhaps they are holding hands watching television.”

PeopleImportantStoriesHandsTogetherSocialMoralDarknessGoneTelevisionListeningInstrumentsOperaDilemmaHolding HandsCatharsisWatching TelevisionMoral DilemmaVerdiRossini
Author:Luciano Berio
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“Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life. ... There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation.”

MenGivingDoeWarSelfEasyDifficultResponsibilityMoralDisciplineGlorySafetySalvationSelf DisciplineDilemmaDifficult ThingsNature Of ManEasy LifeGreat ResponsibilityMoral Dilemma
Author:Margaret Thatcher
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“A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.”

IfsFatherCan DoRealizingSonDutyKingsDadParadoxDaddyDilemmaIncompetenceFathers DayIncompetentFather SonDelegatesFather And SonHappy First Fathers DayHappy Fathers DayFunny Happy Fathers DayMoral DilemmaHappy Fathers Day GreetingsOnly SonSons Love
Book:Marlene Dietrich's ABC: Wit, Wisdom, & Recipes
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