Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa’s apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?
Interpretation
Legal does not equate to moral; the law can permit actions that are unethical.
This quote asserts that legality should not be the sole determinant of morality for a society that values ethics. It highlights the distinction between what is legal and what is morally acceptable by referencing historical injustices that were sanctioned by law, emphasizing that just because something is permitted by legal standards does not mean it is right or just.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate about social justice issues to highlight the importance of ethics over legality.
However, if we wish to be compassionate with our fellow man, we must learn to engage in dispassionate analysis. In other words, thinking with our hearts, rather than our brains, is a surefire method to hurt those whom we wish to help.
In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.
The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.
Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top".
If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
If you believe in subjective morality, why do you lock your doors at night?
What difference is there in the color of the soul?
They say if one understands himself, he understands all people. But I say to you, when one loves people, he learns something about himself.
A thinking man feels compelled to approach all life with the same reverence he has for his own.
If you want to be free, be free, because there's a million things to be.
Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
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