“Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.”

Dr. Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, vol. 2, London: John W. Parker and son, 1859, p. 485 https://books.google.it/books?id=w-I3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA485

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral?…" by John Stuart Mill?
John Stuart Mill photo
John Stuart Mill 179
British philosopher and political economist 1806–1873

Related quotes

Ayn Rand photo
Sam Harris photo

“Mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, The Moral Landscape (2010), p. 3

Sigmund Freud photo

“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
Context: Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

Thomas Hardy photo

“Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!”

Pt. VI, ch. III
Jude the Obscure (1895)

Samuel Butler photo
Milan Kundera photo

“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Testaments Betrayed (1995), p. 7
Context: Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the view­point of the novel’s wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.

Jean Piaget photo

“It is perhaps in this domain that one realized most how keenly how immoral it can be to believe too much in morality, and how much more precious is a little humanity than all the rules in the world.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism <!-- p. 185 -->
Context: The majority of parents are poor psychologists and give their children the most questionable moral trainings. It is perhaps in this domain that one realized most how keenly how immoral it can be to believe too much in morality, and how much more precious is a little humanity than all the rules in the world. Thus the adult leads the child to the notion of objective responsibility, and consolidates in consequence a tendency that is already natural to the spontaneous mentality of little children.

Sigmund Freud photo

“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 7

Related topics