Perkins Theology School’s Dean Bill Lawrence had an absolutely outstanding commentary on KERA-FM this week. You can hear it here (MP3). Dean Lawrence’s timely message concerned those who “ensmall” their spheres of responsibility and accountability vs. those who enlarge them. By defining down those things for which we feel any responsibility, anything outside that circle…
Month: July 2009
Explaining Morality Religiously
The Op-Ed page of the New York Times again has a challenging discussion of morality. The well-known atheist Sam Harris expresses some reservations about President Obama’s nomination of Francis Collins as Director of the National Institutes of Health. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27harris.html?ref=opinion Harris recognizes Collins’ important scientific accomplishments. But he quotes some statements by Collins about religion and…
Peter Singer on the Value of Life
Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine had an article by the eminent utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer with the provocative title, “Why We Must Ration Health Care”: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?ref=magazine It is partly a defense of the idea of a national health insurance program, but it also discusses the idea of ‘rationing’ health care. Singer is brave enough to…
“The More Who Die, the Less We Care”
Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times columnist who writes the most about issues of global poverty and disease, has a discussion today of some of the recent work by psychologists and philosophers about empathy and its limits. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/opinion/09kristof.html Kristof has done his homework, and he cites some of the most important thinkers in these fields….
Mortgages and “Homer Economicus”
I’ve blogged a few times now about the causes of the meltdown and some of the commentators on it that I’ve found to be helpful. (As a moral philosopher interested in character I’ve tended to concentrate on writers who have looked at the imprudence and irrational optimism that affected so many people.) A recent column…
Ethics Curricula in Colleges and Universities
I recently ran across a good paper, written in 2005 and posted to the SSRN website: “A Survey of Ethics Courses in State College and University Curricula,” by Angela Hernquist. Her final question is one that students should be asking their professors and deans in every department and school on this campus: “If the manner…