Category: ethics
-
Ethics and aesthetics are one (house sitting in Brooklyn)
The curtains are pulled back, and the magnolia stands in full bloom, its petals like painted seashells collecting below. It takes up the bedroom window, only softly. In the yard off to the right, bikes, baskets, handle bars lean against a chainlink-wooden fence. A pumpkin, small and orange, sits half-submerged in the spring marsh. Through…
-
John Armstrong on the life blood of civilization
J.E. Lendon favorably reviews John Armstrong’s In Search of Civilization. The upshot of Armstrong’s book, Lendon means to show, is that economic liberty entails artistic liberty. Here are a few highlights from the review: The two imps of the ancient mind, that wealth is either irrelevant to the good life or its bane, still rule…
-
Kathryn Schulz on being wrong
— I’d like to clarify Schulz’s otherwise fine lecture on the virtue of fallibility (I err, therefore I am). First, let’s distinguish between being wrong and going wrong. Being wrong entails self-loathing whereas going wrong suggests an error or lapse in judgment. The same goes for being right and heading in the right direction. The former is self-righteousness,…
-
The Parable of the Talents
There are a few errors commonly made when people speak about the Parable of the Talents. The Parable naturally lends itself to misinterpretation in terms of quantitative comparison. The first man is given 5 talents, the second man 2 talents, and the third man 1 talent. We are thus tempted to evaluate the talents according to…
-
On the saying, “Don’t take any wooden nickels”
When we were about to leave my grandparents’ house, my Grandpa Dunkel used to say, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” Even though there is no general consensus among linguists regarding the provenance of the expression, its connotation is clear enough: Beware of cheaters and con artists. Keep your eyes open because you’re about to step…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 