Fernando Savater on Ethics, summary (from Amador)

p52 morals vs ethics
"Morals" denotes the cluster of standards of behavior that you, I, and most of those around us generally accept as valid.
"Ethics" refers to our reflections as to why we consider them worthwhile...

we have established that neither rules nor customs nor impulses are enough to guide us ethically, and that there is no clear set of rules that teaches a man to be good and act as such --- how can we make ethical sense? DO WHAT YOU WANT.

p69 the first and most opportune thing for you to do is to stop and think deeply about what it is that you want. Many things appeal to you, often even contradictory things.

What I really want is to give myself a good life.

p72-4 A good human life is a good life among other human beings.

The process of humanization (what turns us into what we wish to be, that is, human beings) is a reciprocal process, just as language is. So that other people treat me as human, I too must treat them as human. If I see them all as objects or animals, I myself will be no more than an object or an animal. Hence, giving yourself a good life cannot in the end be very different from granting a good life. Please think about that.

p85-6 Be clear about this: from things, even the best things, can come only things.

No thing (nor animal, since the difference between its condition and ours is too great) can give us friendship, respect, love, or that essential complicity that can arise only between equals, that we as people only receive from people whom we treat in the same way.

p110-115 It's all a matter of taking freedom very seriously or, in other words, being responsible.

remorse is nothing more than the dissatisfaction we feel with ourselves when we have used our freedom badly, when we have acted contradictorily to what we really want as human beings.

Accepting responsibility is being truly free, for better or for worse.

The world around us is full or pretexts for shedding the weight of responsibility.

All those who want to shed responsibility believe in the irresistible nature of whatever enslaves them.

The essence of responsibility is not just having the grace and the decency to accept one's own blunders without looking for excuses. Being responsible is knowing that each act of mine is bringing me into being, defining me, inventing me.

The greatest advantage we can draw from our fellows is not the acquisition of more things or power over more people to treat as things or instruments; it is the shared understanding and affection of other free spirits.

When we do harm to others, the first person harmed is our own self.

What does it mean to treat others as human beings? The answer consists simply of trying to put yourself in the place of the other.

p142 One who lives well must be capable of sympathetic justice, or just compassion.

puritanism is about as opposite as can be to an ethical view of life.