Monthly Archives: April 2011
Colorado’s Adultery Dilemma
Colorado once made adultery illegal to show its disapproval of the practice, a well-intentioned exercise of the government’s legitimate function of helping to set positive cultural and societal norms. Having done that, there is no way to repeal the law, non-functional as it is, without sending the opposite message. Continue reading
Calm Down, Hannity! Superman’s Decision is Super-Ethical.
All in all, Superman’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship is wholly patriotic, diplomatically useful, ethical, and practically meaningless. Continue reading
Is Flogging More Ethical Than Incarceration?
Like reformer/ lawyer Clarence Darrow, who did not believe in free will, Moskos regards criminals as “a class,” and prison as a form of government-sponsored apartheid. Flogging makes sense if one regards that supposed criminal class as a species of animal that can be “trained” to behave lawfully among us by the judicious use of pain, much like Malcolm McDowell’s reprogramming in “A Clockwork Orange.” Continue reading
Filed under U.S. Society
Ethics Hero Emeritus: Phoebe Snow 1950-2011
In a business in which artists will usually sacrifice themselves, their friends, their marriages, children and souls for their art and the fame and riches it can bring, Phoebe Snow embraced different priorities. Continue reading
Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Business & Commercial, Ethics Heroes, Family, Love, Popular Culture, Professions
The Sex and Werewolf-Obsessed Novelist (But NOT Naked!) Teacher Principle
Too many parents would rather see their children instructed in English by high school teachers who couldn’t write a publishable paragraph of prose if their lives depended on it, than allow students to learn how to express themselves from a successful writer of erotic werewolf novels. Continue reading
Don’t Cheer Mississippi’s Westboro Baptist Tactics Too Loudly: You Never Know Who Might Hear You
Sgt. Jason Rogers was buried in peace and dignity. The price of the funeral he deserved, however, was a government-assisted conspiracy to withhold the sacred rights he had died for. Continue reading
The Ethicists, Backing Judge Walker and Gay Marriage, At An Unacceptable Price
My colleagues in the legal ethics field are arguing—decreeing, really— that Judge Vaughn Walker’s decade-long same-sex relationship didn’t need to be disclosed before he ruled against Proposition 8 (California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban) because, they say, it created no reasonable doubts about his impartiality. Coincidentally, they also really, really like his decision. But then, so do I. Continue reading
The Incredible Self-Disproving Rationalization!
Any job seeker who uses The Reference Store is necessarily demonstrating why he or she shouldn’t be hired. Continue reading
Comment of the Day: “The Hazing Abuse of Michael Warren”
Reminding us that one or even several incidents can’t give us the full whole measure of an organization, Hartwick College alum Fred Stoss recalls an act of courage and principle by the fraternity that hazed Michael Warren. Continue reading →
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Filed under Comment of the Day, Education, Etiquette and manners, History, Law & Law Enforcement, Race
Tagged as abuse, accountability, Alpha Delta Omega, autonomy, cognitive dissonance, consenting to abuse, culpability, desire for acceptance, ethical culture, fraternities, Hartwick College, hazing, liability, Michael Warren, negligence, peer pressure, racial bias, racial stereotypes, responsibility