Practical Ethics Quotes

“[...] For instance, a gay man who played with dolls in his childhood, dresses pink and engages in anal sex with another man triggers a gender prejudice, by proxy rather than based on a characteristic of their own, like racism and classism do: dolls and pink are traditionally associated with the feminine sphere, anal sexuality has a higher stigma mainly because a more visible power level play comes into effect (with a dominant and a submissive role) than other sex positions. Consequently, when a man crosses his "designated" gender role boundary of masculinity, strength, dominance into femininity, weakness, submission, then he is no longer valued as a human being, for the man has become [or is] a woman. Therefore, homophobia and transphobia are actually by-products of misogyny, which is is turn gynophobic whitewashing, deeply rooted in the dominant ideology of patriarchy and historical sexism.”
― Vincent Bozzino, Philosophy Trips: A Naive's Guide

“The point of the term “suffering-focused ethics” is ... not to be a novel or impressive contribution to ethical theorizing, but instead to serve as a pragmatic concept that can unite as effective a coalition as possible toward the shared aim of making a real-world difference — to reduce suffering for sentient beings.”
― Magnus Vinding, Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications

“In recent philosophy there has been a growing awareness of the gap between the abstract principles proposed by philosophers and the ways in which people actually think. The kind of rationality admired in the theory of knowledge is idealization. In the real world people have to act on beliefs often based on fragmentary and unreliable evidence.”
― Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century