Everyday Ethics

As an ethicist, I am often troubled by the failure of most people to recognize the ethical implications of their own actions.  Many of the things we do are actually strong indicators of our ethical views, and we ought to be careful about demonstrating what we actually believe.  In some cases, our actions speak louder [...]

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Last week, I wrote an article discussing the ethics of purchasing foreclosed homes.  I suggested that there is something ethically suspect about doing so, and that when we do this, we run a very real risk of using others as a means to our ends.  Several individuals replied to this article by arguing that the [...]

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In a previous article, I discussed the recent proposal from the Obama administration, which suggested that billions of dollars might be saved and the needs of students better served if the U.S. government took over all educational lending.  The interesting side effect of this proposal is that it brings to the forefront a social conversation [...]

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A recent proposal by the Obama administration suggested a bold new direction for the way that student loans are administered in the United States.  Citing a potential savings of billions of dollars, Obama suggested that the U.S.  simply eliminate the middleman, the student loan industry itself, and make educational lending an agreement between students and [...]

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Cloning has been a hot-button social issue ever since the announcement that Dolly the sheep had been successfully cloned.  Visions of Frankenstein’s monster loom in the minds of people who are suspicious of new scientific technology, and there is a strong religious argument against cloning.  However, fans of science fiction have dreamed of the day [...]

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The housing crisis and the economic mess that followed have led to an interesting, but ethically suspect financial opportunity.  Many homes are now on the market at deeply discounted prices, either because they have been foreclosed on or because their owners are simply trying to get out from under a massive mortgage payment.  Either way, [...]

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Justice is a funny thing.  Sometimes justice is about retribution, other times it’s better understood as a type of reconciliation.  Economically, justice also takes two distinct forms.  Some accounts of economic justice focus on an equal and fair distribution of goods, and many people point to the role of historical and social factors in shaping [...]

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We live in a CYA world. Most people are pretty focused on their own self-interest, and this is a very natural thing to do. We don’t like to have bad things happen to us, and when we have the opportunity to protect ourselves, we usually feel like it’s okay to do so. But often, CYA [...]

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Rights talk is a common theme in contemporary moral discourse.  We speak freely of having all sorts of different rights.  Our rights may or may not include a right to freedom of speech, life, non-interference, equal pay for equal work, etc.  If somebody cares about it, you can bet someone, somewhere, has described it as [...]

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