Tomorrow morning I’ll be on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “The Current” radio program, which according to its website is “Canada’s Most Listened-to Radio Program.” Our topic is whether power corrupts. The journalistic context is the recent FIFA scandal, scandals in the Canadian Senate, and the ongoing scandals in politics, business, and so on around the […]
CBC discussion of corruption and power Read More »
The gall of some people. Apparently Malcolm Gladwell has gone after John Paulson for giving $400 million to Harvard University. It takes a special kind of immorality to feel comfortable doing any of the following: (a) bossily telling other people how to spend their own money, (b) telling them how to spend their philanthropic dollars,
On Gladwell’s chastising Paulson Read More »
An amusing line from Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), the great German essayist: “One should forgive one’s enemies, but not before they are hanged.” The line is rhetorically similar to Augustine’s “Give me chastity, oh Lord, but not yet,” from Book 8 of Confessions.
Heine on forgiving one’s enemies, but not too soon Read More »
Um cenário que é querido pelos eticistas, especialistas em políticas públicas e consultores em geral, pede que você se imagine em um bote salva-vidas. Nesses cenários estão inseridas suposições poderosas com implicações de vida ou morte, portanto, é interessante estuda-lo para compreendermos melhor do que se trata. Aqui vamos nós: Você estava sobrevoando o Oceano
A ética do bote salva-vidas, escassez e conflitos Read More »
Dois escândalos sexuais em departamentos de filosofia têm, de certa forma, escandalizado o mundo acadêmico nos últimos dias. Um deles, na Universidade de Miami na Flórida, levou à renúncia do professor Colin McGinn. O outro, na Universidade do Colorado, Boulder, resultou na substituição do chefe do departamento, Graeme Forbes. O caso do professor McGinn diz
Quando professores universitários podem manter relações sexuais com seus alunos? Read More »
The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe: “Rape is among the most horrific of crimes. Sex should be a fun and beautiful thing – but rape takes that most personal of experiences and turns it into a degradation. “There is moderately good news about the number of rapes in the USA. According to the
Campus Sex and the Anti-Sexiness of the New Authoritarians [new The Good Life column] Read More »
The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe: “Let me share with you the most impressive number of our generation: 600 million. “That is how many people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the last 25 years. Never before in history have so many raised themselves to a minimum level of comfort. “The
Who Really Wants to Solve the Problem of Poverty? [new The Good Life column] Read More »
The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe: “Let me brag a bit. In high school I was a pretty good at tennis. Now, many years later, I am an occasional weekend player who has somehow acquired the stamina (and the knees) of a middle-aged man. “But I still have this recurring fantasy that I