The will to set values and the power to make them law are jointly at the bottom of all operative norms. When linked to divine wisdom, this source of moral law is still in safe hands which man can trust.
Our duties and responsibilities as human beings must be shown to be so incontrovertible that even atheists must recognize them. There are ultimate taboos.
It was once religion which told us that we are all sinners because of original sin. It is now the ecology of our planet which pronounces us all to be sinners because of the excessive exploits of human inventiveness.
If man was the relative of animals, then animals were the relatives of man, and in degrees bearers of that inwardness of which man, the most advanced of their kin, is conscious in himself.
Never must the existence or the essence of man as a whole be made a stake in the hazards of action.
Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life.
Responsibility has become the fundamental imperative in modern civilization, and it should be an unavoidable criterion to assess and evaluate human actions, including, in a special way, development activities.
That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation.