If we take the position that an assessment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism is not possible because we are all "on our own journey," then moral assessment becomes completely impossible or is speciesist. It is impossible because if we are all "on our own journey," then there is nothing to say to the racist, sexist, anti-semite, homophobe, etc. If we say that those forms of discrimination are morally bad, but, with respect to animals, we are all "on our own journey" and we cannot make moral assessments about, for instance, dairy consumption, then we are simply being speciesist and not applying the same moral analysis to nonhumans that we apply to the human context.

"I am opposed to animal welfare campaigns for two reasons. First, if animal use cannot be morally justified, then we ought to be clear about that, and advocate for no use. Although rape and child molestation are ubiquitous, we do not have campaigns for "humane" rape or "humane" child molestation. We condemn it all. We should do the same with respect to animal exploitation.

We should always be clear that animal exploitation is wrong because it involves speciesism. And speciesism is wrong because, like racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, classism, and all other forms of human discrimination, speciesism involves violence inflicted on members of the moral community where that infliction of violence cannot be morally justified. But that means that those of us who oppose speciesism necessarily oppose discrimination against humans. It makes no sense to say that speciesism is wrong because it is like racism (or any other form of discrimination) but that we do not have a position about racism. We do. We should be opposed to it and we should always be clear about that.

People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result, people have hitherto been beating the air in their struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with rebellion.

The character of Jesus is the character of God. God would never do something Jesus would find morally reprehensible, so if you can't find it in Jesus, then you really ought to think twice before you claim you've found it in God.

I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.

The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.

My career started young and I was really ambitious and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.

While that amendment failed human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner.

I don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force.

It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.

A functioning robust democracy requires a healthy educated participatory followership and an educated morally grounded leadership.

Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.

As a real person he wouldn't last a minute would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it it was dull. If I was House's friend I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people do we?

Bush is morally a universalist. For instance he says the freedom is good the same thing is good all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist.

A state that suppresses all freedom of speech and which by imposing the most terrible punishments treats each and every attempt at criticism however morally justified and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason is a state that breaks an unwritten law.

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.

The education cuts in the President's budget are both irresponsible and morally unjustifiable.

Of all the public services education is the one I'm most interested in. You get a more dynamic economy you deal with most social problems and it's morally right.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics because discrimination poverty and ignorance restrict growth while investments in education infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Music is about communication... it isn't just something that maybe physically sounds good or orally sounds interesting it's something far far deeper than that.

What today's business reality makes clear is that brands cannot survive in a society that is failing economically socially ethically and morally.

Eloquence n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.