Everyday Ethics

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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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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In a world of mass media, instant communication, and a myriad of differing opinions about dozens of topics, disagreement is an unavoidable aspect of our lives.  Couple that with the innate desire of many people to “win” in cases of conflict and the widespread lack of reasoning skills that plagues our society, and the stage [...]

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The Miss USA pageant is certainly not something that most people interested in philosophy pay attention to.  Frankly, I’m a little shocked that they can find enough women to participate in this thing, since it’s clearly a contest that evaluates women as objects.  That aside, the recent Miss USA pageant produced an interesting sound bite [...]

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Most people agree, for a variety of reasons, that there is something wrong with killing another person.  There are clear cases where killing is deemed acceptable, such as wartime, but this is not because killing is not bad in those cases.  To claim that killing is sometimes acceptable is just to claim that sometimes the [...]

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In the last several articles on liberalism and social problems, we have focused on a variety of different liberal arguments regarding illegal drugs, gun ownership, and pornography.  We saw that one can give a liberal argument on both sides of these issues, and that relevant considerations on one matter sometimes suggest an undesirable policy endorsement [...]

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The final social issue relevant to our discussion of liberal values in society is whether pornography out to be legally permitted.  Studies have shown that there is a statistically significant correlation between misogynistic pornography and violence against women.  Viewing pornography is not a part of most peoples’ idea of the good life, and there is [...]

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