Aphorisms, quotes, statements of great people on the topic of Morality
Morality is not a list of actions or a collection of rules that can be used like apothecary or culinary recipes.
John Dewey
Where morality is based on theology, and law is based on God’s decrees, there the most immoral, unjust and shameful things can be justified and justified.
Ludwig Feuerbach
Morality is only hygiene of the mind and heart.
Romain Rolland
People think that the path of universal culture is the path of morality; but no philosophizing will bear fruit until physical knowledge is applied and everything that relates to practical life is disseminated.
August Einsiedel
Morals are better expressed in short sayings than in long speeches and sermons.
Karl Immerman
Morality has nothing to do with religion... religion not only does not serve as the basis of morality, but is rather hostile to it. True morality must be based on human nature; Religious morality will always be based only on chimeras and on the arbitrariness of those people who endow God with a language that is often fundamentally contrary to both nature and human reason.
Paul Holbach
The desire for happiness is innate to man, so it should be the basis of all morality.
Friedrich Engels
It is easy to preach morality, but it is difficult to justify it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Morality should not be the goal, but the consequence of a work of art.
Benjamin Constant
The law leaves complete freedom to one’s mentality. Morality concerns the state of mind and requires that an action be performed out of respect for duty. Consequently, a course of action that corresponds to the law is moral if it is determined by respect for the law.
Georg Hegel
Morality!!! What sad thoughts this word gives rise to! Morality!!! At this word, the child thinks that he sees teachers armed with rods, the young woman imagines jealous people threatening with the boiling cauldrons of hell... an honest person remembers the many intriguers and criminals for whom morality has served as a mask at all times.
Charles Fourier
For my action to have moral value, my belief must be associated with it. It is immoral to do something out of fear of punishment or in order to gain a good opinion of others about oneself.
Georg Hegel
I will try to enliven morality with wit and temper wit with morality.
Joseph Addison
Morality is religion that has turned into mores.
Heinrich Heine
If correctly understood interest constitutes the principle of all morality, then it is necessary, therefore, to strive to ensure that the private interest of an individual coincides with universal human interests.
Karl Marx
Moral force cannot be created by paragraphs of law...
Karl Marx
We make a virtue out of necessity - this is how morality arises.
Werner Miech
Morality would be an empty science if it could not show man that his greatest interest is to be virtuous.
Paul Holbach
To comprehend the true foundations of morality, people do not need either theology, or revelations, or gods; Simple common sense is enough for this.
Paul Holbach
The greatest misunderstanding is to go into morality when it comes to historical facts.
Denis Diderot
Christian morality, as if deliberately invented in order to fetter human nature and enslave it to imaginary ghosts, therefore had no influence on the majority of people.
Paul Holbach
It is curious, but today politicians prefer to talk about morality, and bishops prefer to talk about politics.
Jonathan Lynn
Morality is genetic: evil is dominant, good is recessive.
Jean Rostand
Morality is what remains of fear when it is forgotten.
Jean Rostand
The ultimate goal of morality should be to provide the greatest opportunity to realize ideals.
Jean Guyot
There is no other morality other than the morality of the human heart, just as there is no other knowledge or other wisdom than the knowledge of one’s needs and the correct idea of the paths to happiness.
Etienne Senancourt
The question about the reality of morality comes down to this: is there really a valid principle opposite to the principle of selfishness? Since egoism requires well-being only for the individual, the opposite principle would have to extend this requirement to everyone.
Arthur Schopenhauer
In fact, each class and even each profession has its own morality, which they also violate whenever they can do so with impunity.
Friedrich Engels
Morality is for most people a system of ensuring one’s own rightness.
Robert Musil
Morality is based on the autonomy of the human spirit...
Karl Marx
Morality is “powerlessness in action.” Every time she enters into a struggle with any vice, she suffers defeat.
Karl Marx
Independent morality offends the universal principles of religion, and the special concepts of religion are contrary to morality.
Karl Marx
What is good in politics cannot be bad in morality.
Jeremy Bentham
There is no other morality except that which is based on the principles of reason and follows from man's natural inclination to goodness.
Pierre Bayle
Morality is the grammar of religion. It is easier to act justly than nicely.
Carl Berne
An unsocial person cannot have morals.
Voltaire
There are people whose morals are always... matter from which they never sew dresses for themselves.
Joseph Joubert
Morality is the tendency to throw out the bath with the baby.
Karl Kraus
Morality says: “Don't look here!” And this suits both sides.
Karl Kraus
The lower ones do not rise to morality, the lower ones do not condescend to it.
George Shaw
There is no doubt that... in morality... in general there is progress.
Friedrich Engels
Every moral theory has hitherto been ultimately a product of the given economic situation of society.
Friedrich Engels
We live by a double morality: we profess one, but do not use it in practice, and we use the other, but profess it very rarely.
Bertrand Russell
Morality requires a different kind of clarity. Here it is not a matter of contemplation feeding the mind, but of impulses directing the will. She needs heat and ardor more than light.
Joseph Joubert
The basis of life is the basis for morality. Where, from hunger, from poverty, you have no material in your body, there is no basis and material for morality in your head, in your heart and in your feeling.
Ludwig Feuerbach
The reason why the morality of all theories deviates so far from human behavior is that in morality all people are considered equal, while in practice this is not the case.
August Einsiedel
We... reject any attempt to impose on us any kind of moral dogma as an eternal, final, henceforth unchangeable moral law, under the pretext that the world of morality also has its own eternal principles, standing above history and national differences.
Friedrich Engels
The principle of morality is happiness, but not the kind of happiness that is concentrated on one and the same person, but happiness distributed among different persons...
Ludwig Feuerbach
To morality: the highest thing in it is to ensure that the guilt and suffering of this heart are buried in itself and the heart becomes the grave of the heart.
Georg Hegel
Morality gives general principles of behavior, leaving out specific circumstances.
Pierre Bayle
People need human morality based on human nature, experience, and reason.
Claude-Adrian Helvetius
We do not have a perfect work on moral science, but we have the most information about morality.
Stanislav Stashits
Politics is public morality, morality is private politics.
Gabriel-Bonnot Mably
Unity and commonalities
Historically, the first laws arose as attempts to streamline moral norms and avoid contradictions in their interpretation. Now these concepts have diverged greatly, but similar features can be found. The general features of law and morality are:
- Target. The main task of both laws and moral customs is to regulate the behavior of people in society by establishing certain rules. They are designed to provide conditions for the development and prosperity of the structure.
- Ideological basis. Both law and morality are based on the idea of justice and correctness of actions. They call for the interests and desires of all members of society to be taken into account and exist to ensure that these are respected.
- Role in society. Both law and morality are necessary to create a harmonious and well-functioning society whose members strive for productive and mutually beneficial relationships with each other.
Norms of behavior in their various manifestations are necessary to maintain society. A society deprived of a legal basis and moral guidelines will self-destruct over time.
Practical examples of the differences
You can be convinced of the differences between legal and moral norms in ordinary life situations that arise every day. In simple everyday interactions between people, you can often notice small lies, rudeness, disrespect and other unpleasant behavior that does not lead to the loss of something valuable or physical harm.
All this is condemned by people from a moral point of view, but does not lead to punishment by the law.
The opposite situations are less common, but they also happen. For example, giving false testimony in defense of a relative or close friend will be condemned by law, but in many cultures such an act will not be considered immoral. A large gap between legal and moral norms arose during times of war, when it was considered illegal (but morally correct) to help refugees and civilians.
There are both similarities and differences between legal norms and morality. They are united by a common goal - creating order and security in society , as well as ensuring fair support for the interests of all citizens. Therefore, they develop together, supporting and complementing each other.
Interaction and coexistence
Despite all the differences, legal and moral norms are united by one goal: they both exist to maintain order in society, protect the rights of people, harmonize the interests of the individual and the group, resolve conflicts, and ensure security. The effectiveness of laws largely depends on their compliance with the moral values accepted in society. They should, if not correspond to them, then at least not contradict.
Sometimes different legal and moral norms come to unity over time. For example, thanks to the laws, such traditions of the old society as blood feuds and family feuds were suppressed. Other moral guidelines, on the contrary, are supported by law. Examples are criminal norms, which largely echo the values of society, which condemns theft, murder, perjury, and coercion. In this case, law helps morality by punishing violations of its principles with sanctions.
Arguments for the thesis “what is legal is moral”
1. Only laws can effectively stop immoral activities.
Many laws prohibit immoral activities (immoral means mainly socially dangerous activities harmful to society). Some acts, such as murder, theft, and violation of confidentiality, are so dangerous to society that their moral condemnation is reinforced by penalties established by law. The state necessarily relies on the thesis “what is legal is moral”, making adjustments to its moral position and thus modeling its behavior in order to ensure trust and moral acceptance on the part of the community both of itself and of the laws issued. 2. Consolidation of ethical rules in legislation. Virtually all legal norms are a reflection of the ethical views that legislators shared or preached. Russian laws contain norms with a clearly defined ethical orientation. They establish the principles of legal regulation, which determine the criteria for the ethicality of law or the “spirit” of the law; in accordance with them, its “letter” should be understood and interpreted. Thus, the texts of laws include and legislate the possibility and permission for moral evaluation and moral control of these laws by the community, individual citizens and the state.
3. Threat to the security of the country. The thesis “what is legal is moral” is the basic principle of public administration in situations of threat to the security of the country, state security. In such situations, preference is usually given to national interests. Sometimes this happens at the expense of infringement of the personal rights and freedoms of citizens. For some states, at certain periods of time, it is beneficial to maintain a state of threat to the country's security in order to be able, based on certain interpretations of laws (law), to control public order and determine the will of the people (morality).
4. Arbitrariness of corporations. In a number of cases, there is an urgent need to strengthen the protection of the individual, rights and freedoms of citizens (morality) through justice (law). Currently, this need increasingly arises in connection with the arbitrariness of corporations, which can be expressed in the exploitation of people, in discrimination based on gender, nationality, race, social status, etc., in forcing employees to commit unethical acts for the benefit of corporations (for example , hide the unseemly activities of the corporation, the production of dangerous products, corruption, etc.).
Narrow corporate (selfish) interests are also inherent in various government bodies. Using their power, these social structures can, in their claims to a share of the social product (corporate morality), use their own power (law), and this sometimes leads to the fact that certain areas of activity of the public administration apparatus fall completely out of the control of general civil justice (right). Therefore, the binding of government institutions by law (law) is the most effective guarantee against abuse of power (corporate morality).
5. Clash of different “morals”. Sometimes only with the help of law enforcement agencies (law) can one prevent the “revelry” of the public, driven by feelings of moral or religious indignation (morality).
Based on the above arguments, we can draw the following conclusion: not everything is moral that is legal, and not everything is immoral that is illegal.
