"

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, p...more

"

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

"

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 ...more

"

In the absence of any general inference from ‘A is a potential X’ to ‘A has the rights of an X’, we should not accept that a potential person should h...more

"

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 l...more

"

It is interesting, in this context, to think again of our earlier argument that membership of the species Homo sapiens does not entitle a being to bet...more

"

The capacity for suffering – or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness – is not just another characteristic like the capacity for ...more

"

Suppose that we believe that in 200 years, people would be prepared to pay a million dollars (that's in today's dollars, not inflated ones) to be able...more

"

We have examined a number of ethical issues. We have seen that many accepted practices are open to serious objections. What ought we to do about it? T...more

"

The merely conscious being does not have a preference for continued life. Perhaps while having a pleasurable experience it has a preference for that e...more

"

My suggestion, then, is that we accord the fetus no higher moral status than we give to a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-cons...more

"

Pacifists have usually regarded the use of violence as absolutely wrong, irrespective of its consequences. This, like other ‘no matter what’ prohibiti...more

"

If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness...more

"

I agree with Varner and Scruton that the more one thinks of one's life as a story that has chapters still to be written, and the more one hopes for ac...more

"

To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give p...more