Everyday Ethics

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In the wake of the tragedy of Newtown, the latest in a series of troubling incidents of mass killings involving guns, there has been an unsurprising renewal of the debate about gun control legislation.  At one extreme are the abolitionists, those who would like to see gun ownership heavily restricted, if not totally [...]

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Every year at this time, a familiar debate emerges regarding how we ought to wish one another a pleasant holiday season.  For some, this time of year is about Christmas, and Christmas is a Christian holiday, so we ought to be saying “Merry Christmas.”  For others, this time of year is important for many faiths [...]

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Recently, Senator Todd Akin made some questionable comments regarding the prevalence of pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.”  In an earlier post, I argued that while Akin’s comments were biologically ridiculous, they don’t obviously imply a deeply flawed moral character.
Akin has now apologized for his comments, claiming that he used “the [...]

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Representative and candidate for Senator Todd Akin recently made a truly ridiculous comment about the frequency of pregnancy due to rape, which has caused a flurry of discussion regarding Republican nominee for President Mitt Romney’s position on abortion.
Akin, who has long-expressed opposition to abortion even in cases of rape, was seemingly attempting to [...]

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With apologies for the badly rhyming title, the current debate spurned by Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s comments about the proper structure of marriage has led to a serious backlash from both gay-marriage supporters and defenders of either Cathy’s comments, or his right to make them.  Clearly, this is a good place for some philosophical analysis, [...]

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The Jerry Sandusky scandal continues to change the landscape of Penn State University.  Sandusky’s recent conviction on dozens of criminal charges related to sexual misconduct with children led to, among other things, a debate about whether to remove the statue of legendary football coach Joe Paterno, from its prominent place outside Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.
According [...]

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The recently released report from independent investigator Louis Freeh was an important moment in the unfolding of the  Penn State-Jerry Sandusky scandal.  Freeh’s investigation revealed a culture of deference to Penn State’s late, and legendary head football coach, Joe Paterno.  According to Freeh, Paterno participated in a cover-up of the allegations against former assistant coach [...]

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If you’re like me, you probably wonder how, in an era of overwhelming prosperity for numerous people, when technology and medicine have advanced more in the last ten years than in the previous fifty, we continue to be unable to solve the basic moral problem of how to get along with each other.
Then I take [...]

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I am currently teaching an online medical ethics course, and one of my students in that course has fallen on a bit of bad luck.  Through no fault of her own, she finds herself in circumstances which make it exceedingly difficult for her to complete the course, and we now find ourselves discussing various options [...]

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Yesterday, a Georgia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan had their request to “adopt” a portion of state route 515 denied.  While my initial reaction to this decision was “well of course they were denied, it’s the KKK,” a closer examination of the arguments given for the decision somewhat tempered my support for this ruling.  [...]

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