Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears.

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John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

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John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

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Noam Chomsky

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

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Protect Individual Rights

To precisely follow set
traditions an accepted
professed social cultural

religious rule of conduct
such actions are perceived
a model of good conduct?

In a healthy society such
behaviour should earn an
individual esteemed title

recognition as a good person
of genuine moral principles
responsibility as a role model.

A fundamental doctrine or tenet
is an agreed upon social contract
a distinctive conduct ruling opinion

a guiding sense of requirements
obligations enforce right conduct
moral principle is honour bound.

A fixed predetermined policy
a standard of lawful behavior
a sound law of moral judgments

decisions based on beneficial principles
ensures guarantees civilized society will
protect individual rights for benefit of all.


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John W. Gardner

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

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There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart.

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Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is
unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.

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Mario Vargas Llosa

Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty.

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What we need to make our first and primary task is — and where our struggle ought to concentrate on — is upon ourselves. We have to cleanse our thoughts from hatred; different political views and religion are our blessings, we have to conduct them with love. Even if there are disagreements arising from our differences, we should side with justice rather than injustice and correct our moral lenses. Justice should be our main principle; love and respect for all human beings ought to be our moral compass. This is our eternal job that cannot be completed and a work that needs to be always performed. It is our lifelong assignment.

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The Moral Rights

‘The moral rights of the author
have been asserted’… that, I’m told,
is what I should say when I write
anything for publication here; even before
I say anything..

It means, I guess, the more, the less..
than ‘Copyright’ which normally
gets printed just above it;
which just means, don’t copy this;

whereas ‘moral rights’ convey
so much more…
suggesting that I even possess morality;
which, considering my wild, undisciplined
former life, you might well question..

but note, I merely ‘assert’ them;
feel free to challenge them (you note that ‘rights’
are plural; plenty lawyer’s fees there
to say, well maybe this, not that…

and you’re free (your defending counsel may assert)
to copy my poem and put your own name to it;
since truth can be in no man’s sole possession,
and my poem, bless its metered tropes,
speaks naught but the truth..

though now I mention ‘truth’, I don’t recall
that phrase about the moral rights
upon the title-page of, let’s say,
the Gospels; Books of Moses; Qu’ran; Upanishads;
those guys on whom we’ve so long depended
to tell us what morality should be..

so please understand, that when I ‘assert’,
it’s more for my self-image than for yours;
makes me feel good; I must be
a serious author, if (in the subtext, scholars footnote)
the moral underpinning may be detected..

and that said – now to the poem.. Except
now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say..

Perhaps that, too, is a moral issue; but
I have the right to remain silent..
even if I’m up on this morality charge..

my defence is, that my Muse,
hearing the word ‘morality’,
flees my company. ’Twas ever so.

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Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.

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Elfriede Jelinek

The government has once again made the right socially acceptable.

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William Blake

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

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Johann Kaspar Lavater

The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time.

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Erich Fromm

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

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How can an act done under compulsion have any moral element in it, seeing that what is moral is the free act of an intelligent being?

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If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

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The moral law commands us to make the highest possible good in a world the final object of all our conduct.

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The most powerful moral influence is example.

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Which Side Are You On

Which Side Are You On

Why do we think one victim
suffers more than the other
one deserves more sympathy
than the other

What guides us to identify more
with one and not the other
rhetoric that plays on emotions
twangs heart strings in one country

Falls on deaf ears else where
the same terrorist is judged
as patriot and martyr

A criminal act becomes moral
why do we equate a suicide terrorist
with terminaing the controllers
in fact why do we equate one act

Of violence with another
aren't they all honorable deeds
for honorable humane causes
strange the case of preferences

Strum the chords of sympathy
strut the stage in limelight
blind the viewer and voyuer
from weighing the causes and reasons

Devoid the emotions
free from hate and revenge
quit the game of equating one cruel deed with another
saying one violent murder
is more horrendous than the other

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