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A Clockwork Orange Morality and Ethics Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice."

"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime--" (2.7.13-14)

The Government is not concerned with the higher, philosophical questions of ethics and choice.

Quote #8

"You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprive of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all…" (2.3.13)

The chaplain laments that Alex has reached a point at which he can no longer make an ethical choice between good and evil. This makes him essentially non-human, and God can't possibly affect that.