A Quote by Ayn Rand
It is fairly easy to grasp abstract moral principles; it can be very difficult to apply them to a given situation, particularly when it involves the moral character of another person.
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To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.
Character is just another term for "good person." A person of character lives a worthy life guided by moral principles. A person of character is a good parent, a good friend, a good employee and a good citizen.
You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.
The Sermon on the Mount does not provide humanity with a complete guide to personal, social and economic problems. It sets forth spiritual attitudes, moral principles of universal validity, such as " Love your enemies," "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," and it leaves to Christians the task-the admittedly difficult task-of applying them in any given situation.
Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.
There are people with Asperger's whom I've met who certainly would be very upset to learn they'd hurt another person's feelings. They often have very strong moral consciences and moral codes. They care about not hurting people.
The moral absolutes rest upon God's character. The moral commands He has given to men are an expression of His character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice on the basis of what God is. The standards of morality are determined by what conforms to His character, while those things which do not conform are immoral.
A person is said to have good character when their habits, dispositions and conduct reflect a deep commitment to ethical virtues and moral principles.
Our search for such [moral] principles can start with . . . the unconditional imperative to acknowledge every person as a person. If we ask for the contents given by this absolute, we find, first, something negative-the command not to treat a person as a thing. This seems little, but it is much. It is the core of the principle of justice.
There can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school-room is either moral or it is a degrading force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence my argument is as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the American Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot be teacher.
Unless the will is free, man has no freedom; and if he has no freedom he is not a moral agent, that is, he is incapable of moral action and also of moral character.
Character - We describe the character of a person in reference to moral judgments about the worthiness of a person. Thus, to have a strong, great or honorable character is to be a person of merit, worthy of admiration and honor.
I think it's fairly easy to provide a moral defense of capitalism. It has been - over the last 200 years - the underlying basis for enormous increases in productivity and human welfare and rising living standards, particularly in the United States, and in the industrialized nations but in fact, in most parts of the world.
We are inclined to confuse freedom and democracy, which we regard as moral principles, with the way in which they are practiced in America with capitalism, federalism, and the two-party system, which are not moral principles but simply the preferred and accepted practices of the American people.
It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral.
And so, today, if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition, it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens.
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