“Were we incapable of empathy of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is...”

“In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually ...”

“What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.”

“Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task...”

“If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and the poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, we are not the left.”

“Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing specia...”