Philosophy
No one wants to deny that the murderer or Dr. George Tiller bears responsibility for his actions, but the fact is that this crime would not have happened without the groundwork having been laid by a number of people with big megaphones. While no one speech act on the part of Bill O'Reilly, Randall Terry, or anyone else can be causally linked to the horrible crime, certainly the sum total of them were a causal factor in creating the environment which did play a causal role. Having the big megaphone means having more impact on people, what moral responsibility comes with it? Inciting violence is clearly problematic, but what about what the speaker thinks is a merely rhetorical call for violence? What of charged rhetoric that does not directly call for violence, but is intended to get people riled up to a point where some could commit violence? Are the speakers responsible for acts they did not commit, but were a part of establishing the environment from which the acts spring?
- Right-wing Violence
We were given a report from Homeland Security warning of right-wing violence. Now in a short span of time, we have the assassination of Dr. George Tiller and a man opening fire in front of the Holocaust Museum. Is this an inevitable consequence of change?...
- Is There An Ethical Statute Of Limitations?
A couple of ethics questions today relating to time. In Confessions, Augustine puts his head in his hands lamenting the horrible crime he committed as a child -- sneaking into a neighbor's yard and stealing some pears. He wasn't hungry and had...
- Moral Luck And The Division Of Moral Labor
Ethicists think about a notion termed "moral luck." The idea is that histoical accidents often play into what responsibilities we have. Two people are walking past different swimming pools, one has a drowning child and one doesn't. Both people were...
- Myth/reality--the Old American West
Not the wild and woolly West as we were taught...that there were leagues of justice and mythology should be taken lightly. "In a thorough review of the “West was violent” literature, Bruce Benson (1998) discovered that many historians simply assume...
- Violence And Micromanagement Of The Human Psyche
"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom,...
Philosophy
Voices in the Chorus
No one wants to deny that the murderer or Dr. George Tiller bears responsibility for his actions, but the fact is that this crime would not have happened without the groundwork having been laid by a number of people with big megaphones. While no one speech act on the part of Bill O'Reilly, Randall Terry, or anyone else can be causally linked to the horrible crime, certainly the sum total of them were a causal factor in creating the environment which did play a causal role. Having the big megaphone means having more impact on people, what moral responsibility comes with it? Inciting violence is clearly problematic, but what about what the speaker thinks is a merely rhetorical call for violence? What of charged rhetoric that does not directly call for violence, but is intended to get people riled up to a point where some could commit violence? Are the speakers responsible for acts they did not commit, but were a part of establishing the environment from which the acts spring?
- Right-wing Violence
We were given a report from Homeland Security warning of right-wing violence. Now in a short span of time, we have the assassination of Dr. George Tiller and a man opening fire in front of the Holocaust Museum. Is this an inevitable consequence of change?...
- Is There An Ethical Statute Of Limitations?
A couple of ethics questions today relating to time. In Confessions, Augustine puts his head in his hands lamenting the horrible crime he committed as a child -- sneaking into a neighbor's yard and stealing some pears. He wasn't hungry and had...
- Moral Luck And The Division Of Moral Labor
Ethicists think about a notion termed "moral luck." The idea is that histoical accidents often play into what responsibilities we have. Two people are walking past different swimming pools, one has a drowning child and one doesn't. Both people were...
- Myth/reality--the Old American West
Not the wild and woolly West as we were taught...that there were leagues of justice and mythology should be taken lightly. "In a thorough review of the “West was violent” literature, Bruce Benson (1998) discovered that many historians simply assume...
- Violence And Micromanagement Of The Human Psyche
"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom,...