“Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are "merely aesthetic". That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to...”

“Almost any established decision procedure is better than a resort to force; for when force is used, people get hurt and the desire for retaliation is likely to lead to more violence. Moreover, most...”

“Our ancestors lived in groups of no more than a few hundred people, and those on the other side of a river or mountain range might as well have been living in a separate world. We developed ethical...”

“For a merely conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Death cannot be contrary to an interest in continued life any m...”

“It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to distance ourselves from our own beliefs so that we can dispassion...”

“The capacity for suffering or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or for higher mathematics. Bentham is no...”

“What now matters most is how we respond to various risks to the survival of humanity. We are creating some of these risks, and discovering how we could respond to these and other risks. If we reduc...”

“We have a special name, here, for a certain kind of failure to defer to the greater goodfor putting a personal sense of doing right above any objective measure of the outcome. Its called moral vanity.”

“Pacifists have usually regarded the use of violence as absolutely wrong, irrespective of its consequences. This, like other ‘no matter what’ prohibitions, assumes the validity of the distinction be...”

“We stand at a crossroads. Do we choose 'the will to power' or 'the will to humanity,' or perhaps a new configuration of both: the power of humanity?”

“One thing I learned as a journalist is that there is at least one disgruntled person in every workplace in America -- and at least double that number with a conscience. Hard as they try, they simpl...”

“Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to dimini...”

“We being satiate with continual wars, let the desire of peace a little move us.”

“No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”

“Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could. ”