Morality and Ethics Archives

Public Health

Radical Hope Amid Catastrophe

When a collective culture is threatened with collapse, so are the reference points for defining a good life.

May 14, 2020 • by Vafa Ghazavi

At a Christian Dior factory outside Paris, machines that once filled ornate vials with luxury fragrances are filling plastic bottles with hand sanitizer destined for public hospitals. Men and women who were dossing down on London’s streets have begun sleeping in rooms of the InterContinental Hotels Group after the city’s mayor negotiated a way ...

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Common Decency: Kurt Vonnegut as Moralist

November 25, 2015 • by Laura Nelson

Kurt Vonnegut is often remembered these days as a humorist, a cynic in the Mark Twain mold, a novelist whose imagination ranged far and wide but lacked gravitas, even though he dealt with tragic themes like the Dresden firebombing and the fictional apocalypse of ice-nine. These recollections are, I believe, ...

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The Specter of Fear

Europe after the Paris attacks

November 23, 2015 • by Siobhan Kattago

A specter is haunting Europe after the Paris attacks of Friday, the 13^th of November. We feel this specter of fear as we hypnotically click onto news sites for updates, analysis and pictures of the latest terror attacks. There is an awful sense that we have been here ...

Power and Crisis

Moral Sentiment and Moral Judgment after the Paris Attacks

On the problem of selective solidarity

November 18, 2015 • by Michael Weinman

Ever since the dust began to clear after what President Hollande rightfully called "the horror" of Friday night, my media consumption -- yes, especially my Facebook feed (constantly refreshed with reflections from Public Seminar) ...

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