Everyday Ethics

As the holiday season finally, mercifully ends, many of us find ourselves on the receiving end of at least one miserable holiday gift.  Perhaps the item is the wrong size or color, a common but forgivable mistake, albeit a slightly insulting one when the giver has grossly over-estimated your size.  Or perhaps the item is [...]

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The latest issue of Sports Illustrated’s famous swimsuit issue is now on newstands, its cover graced by a scantily bikini-clad Kate Upton.  Miss Upton is something of a phenom in the world of modeling (or super-modeling, as the case may be), and has also made something of a name for herself by exchanging snide comments [...]

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During the recent memorial service for Penn State’s legendary football coach, Joe Paterno, most of the speakers tactfully avoided making comments about Paterno’s role in the now infamous Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.  The majority of the speakers spoke about Paterno’s commitment to winning “the right way,” and about his skills as a leader and [...]

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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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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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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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Most people will agree that there is something wrong with lying, and some would go so far as to claim that you should never lie, even when doing so will protect another person from harm.  But misrepresentation is often another story altogether.  Those who view lying as clearly wrong will nonetheless misrepresent themselves to others, [...]

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Positive thinking is something of a new age mantra in contemporary society. As the study of the mind becomes more sophisticated, there is an increasing awareness of our ability to control our emotions, manipulate our moods, and make choices about how happy we are as people. The merits of positive thinking are usually [...]

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