Top 8 Moral Absolutism Quotes

Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants.

Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants.

Peter Kreeft

Philosophy, Caring, Moral Absolutism

It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life.

Richard Hofstadter

Moral Absolutism, Practice, Political

Richard Hofstadter (2011). “The Age of Reform”, p.16, Vintage

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.

Christopher Hitchens

Mistake, Black And White, Moral Absolutism

Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5104, NYU Press

Relativity must replace absolutism in the realm of morals as well as in the spheres of physics and biology.

Thomas Cochrane

Moral Absolutism, Spheres, Physics

According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all.

Jon Krakauer

Success, Moral Absolutism, Challenges

FaceBook post by Jon Krakauer from Jun 21, 2012

Their usual mistaken premise is that they affirm some consensus among people, at least among tame peoples, concerning certain moral principles, and then conclude that these principles must be unconditionally binding also for you and me-or conversely, they see that among different peoples moral valuations are necessarily different and infer from this that no morality is binding-both of which are equally childish.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Moral Absolutism, People, Usual

Friedrich Nietzsche, Bernard Williams, Josefine Nauckhoff (2001). “Nietzsche: The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.203, Cambridge University Press

Above all, creators remain drawn to the age-old paradoxes that philosophy grapples with [and]...that art occasionally resolves...the problem of the one and the many; unity and variety; determinism and freedom; mechanism and vitalism; good and evil; time and eternity; the plenum and the void; moral absolutism and relativism... These are the basic problems of human existence, and as far as we possibly can we arrange things to forget them.

Frank Barron

Art, Philosophy, Moral Absolutism