Edgar Pangborn on Ethics
← Back to Edgar Pangborn Profile
βIf youβre interested in ethics, you could do worse than think in terms of geological time.β
βAfter three and a half centuries I have found, for an empirical ethics, no better starting axiom than this: cruelty and evil are virtually synonyms. Human ethical teachers have insisted over the ages that a cruel act is an evil act, and men on the whole endorse the doctrine no matter how repeatedly they violate it. There is inevitable revulsion against any blatant attempt to make cruelty a law of behavior.β