Category Archives: Ethics

The apple was good. What the god did was evil. And therein lies the difference of good and evil. Try to think of an organized religion that does not gain its strength by sucking on the blood of human pleasure … Continue reading →

“And do you know what He said then…?” I have heard it said that people on Wall Street are ten times more likely to tell ruthless lies than the general population. According to these reports, 11% percent of them are … Continue reading →

Sometimes we can forget that much of our best efforts have been about trying to find ideal attitudes within ourselves, toward fellow human beings. A case could be made, that we can be surprised by our own inner potential, but … Continue reading →

Among Plato’s collection of somewhat adolescent pronouncements is his famous “to know the good is to do the good.” In a recent interview with Spiegel magazine, the well-experienced actress Senta Berger remarked that, while she sees theater as a moral … Continue reading →

In a recent interview with “Die Zeit,” the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz is quoted as saying that “we love according to the rules of the market.” When I asked a renowned economist if economics knows anything about the Kantian concept … Continue reading →

As education evaluators and outcomes assessment experts proliferate like rabbits, with very little evaluation of the outcome of their impact on our incomes or on personal trust and courage, there is a saintly glow rising over their offices: the sacredness … Continue reading →

When we take a closer look, it can be amazing how much of human energy is spent on “DON’T.” Even those darling children know already that, to get their parents’ full attention, one has to excite them enough to elicit … Continue reading →

One could trust a bicycle. It’s a thing, but we can go through many scrapes and difficult situations with it and never suspect its motives. It’s a thing and therefore has no intention, not even to be mean. And then … Continue reading →

In the center of a large, church-owned mental hospital, the Tannenhof, stands a chapel. The inmates of the hospital are allowed to walk out of their wards, if they have dutifully taken their medicine and the attending psychiatrist certifies that … Continue reading →

“It’s all relative,” smart college students like to say. And then they grow into politicians and pretend to no longer believe in anything but absolutes, while selling us all kinds of twisted messages, in good conscience, since (hee-hee) it is … Continue reading →

Should our politicians also be willing to attend another kind of memorial service every year: a service in memory of all those who die every year, in vain, because of political squabbling over challenges to which we have proven solutions? … Continue reading →

Racism is of course a deadly serious matter, if only because it has turned deadly so many times already, in so many vicious ways. The sad thing about getting away from racism is that we will not allow ourselves the … Continue reading →