Ethics

Latest Posts in Ethics

Digging Out

It is hard to know where to begin, after such a seemingly endless stream of weather-related disasters and, most recently, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Only yesterday did the earthquake recovery efforts there begin to move to the next stage of restoration.  


Evolution and Ethics: It’s Not an Oxymoron

The evidence suggests that cooperation was the “master architect” of evolutionary complexity, especially in humankind.  That’s why ethics is so important. The selfish gene model of evolution is a one-sided caricature.  Darwin himself understood the important role of ethics in human evolution. The ethical implications of a fundamentally cooperative model of human evolution are obvious.  Effective social cooperation depends on having a harmonious social relationship.


Risk, Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

Recently, probably because of local elections and the national political climate, I’ve spent more time reading and thinking about how to “backstop democracy,” – I strongly recommend reading The Brookings Institution’s new white paper, The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding.


Good Law

Today’s attorneys are often called upon to have more sophisticated skills and experience beyond being mere practitioners of law.


Ethics in the Garden of Evolution

Evolution and ethics may seem to be incompatible, perhaps even an oxymoron.  Isn’t natural selection all about individual competition and winner take all?  Logically, the end should justify the means, ethically speaking.   As I noted in a previous blog item on the “Survival of the Fittest,” this model is totally deficient.  Complex human societies have evolved as a cooperative enterprise, a “superorganism”, and our relationships with one another are highly relevant to the well-being of both the individual members and the whole.