Paul Waldman
The Washington Post
Originally posted on August 23, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
But Trump is big on people keeping their mouths shut. As head of the Trump Organization, as a candidate and as president, he has forced underlings to sign nondisclosure agreements forbidding them from revealing what saw while in his employ. In many cases, those agreements included non-disparagement clauses in which the signer had to pledge never to criticize Trump or his family for as long as they lived. The mafia had “omerta,” and Trump has the NDA.
So how will Republicans react to Trump’s diatribe against flipping criminals? Will they try to ignore it or decide he has a point?
The thing about a cult of personality is that its character depends on the personality in question. Republicans sometimes mocked Democrats for worshiping Barack Obama, and you might argue that some of his supporters got a bit starry-eyed at times, particularly in 2008. But Obama never asked them to suddenly offer a full-throated defense of something morally abhorrent simply because the president thought it might be good for him. Whether you agreed with his policy choices, Obama was a man of great personal integrity who ran an administration free of any significant scandal. No Obama supporter ever said, “Oh my god, I never thought he’d ask me to justify that.”
Trump does, on an almost daily basis. But if his supporters are having any doubts, they might want to consider that this won’t be the last time he asks them to abandon their principles.
The info is here.
Showing posts with label Principles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principles. Show all posts
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Sunday, April 22, 2018
What is the ethics of ageing?
Christopher Simon Wareham
Journal of Medical Ethics 2018;44:128-132.
Abstract
Applied ethics is home to numerous productive subfields such as procreative ethics, intergenerational ethics and environmental ethics. By contrast, there is far less ethical work on ageing, and there is no boundary work that attempts to set the scope for ‘ageing ethics’ or the ‘ethics of ageing’. Yet ageing is a fundamental aspect of life; arguably even more fundamental and ubiquitous than procreation. To remedy this situation, I examine conceptions of what the ethics of ageing might mean and argue that these conceptions fail to capture the requirements of the desired subfield. The key reasons for this are, first, that they view ageing as something that happens only when one is old, thereby ignoring the fact that ageing is a process to which we are all subject, and second that the ageing person is treated as an object in ethical discourse rather than as its subject. In response to these shortcomings I put forward a better conception, one which places the ageing person at the centre of ethical analysis, has relevance not just for the elderly and provides a rich yet workable scope. While clarifying and justifying the conceptual boundaries of the subfield, the proposed scope pleasingly broadens the ethics of ageing beyond common negative associations with ageing.
The article is here.
Journal of Medical Ethics 2018;44:128-132.
Abstract
Applied ethics is home to numerous productive subfields such as procreative ethics, intergenerational ethics and environmental ethics. By contrast, there is far less ethical work on ageing, and there is no boundary work that attempts to set the scope for ‘ageing ethics’ or the ‘ethics of ageing’. Yet ageing is a fundamental aspect of life; arguably even more fundamental and ubiquitous than procreation. To remedy this situation, I examine conceptions of what the ethics of ageing might mean and argue that these conceptions fail to capture the requirements of the desired subfield. The key reasons for this are, first, that they view ageing as something that happens only when one is old, thereby ignoring the fact that ageing is a process to which we are all subject, and second that the ageing person is treated as an object in ethical discourse rather than as its subject. In response to these shortcomings I put forward a better conception, one which places the ageing person at the centre of ethical analysis, has relevance not just for the elderly and provides a rich yet workable scope. While clarifying and justifying the conceptual boundaries of the subfield, the proposed scope pleasingly broadens the ethics of ageing beyond common negative associations with ageing.
The article is here.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Will Trump Be the Death of the Goldwater Rule?
Jeannie Suk Gersen
The New Yorker
Originally posted August 23, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
The class of professionals best equipped to answer these questions has largely abstained from speaking publicly about the President’s mental health. The principle known as the “Goldwater rule” prohibits psychiatrists from giving professional opinions about public figures without personally conducting an examination, as Jane Mayer wrote in this magazine in May. After losing the 1964 Presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater successfully sued Fact magazine for defamation after it published a special issue in which psychiatrists declared him “severely paranoid” and “unfit” for the Presidency. For a public figure to prevail in a defamation suit, he must demonstrate that the defendant acted with “actual malice”; a key piece of evidence in the Goldwater case was Fact’s disregard of a letter from the American Psychiatric Association warning that any survey of psychiatrists who hadn’t clinically examined Goldwater was invalid.
The Supreme Court denied Fact’s cert petition, which hoped to vindicate First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press. But Justice Hugo Black, joined by William O. Douglas, dissented, writing, “The public has an unqualified right to have the character and fitness of anyone who aspires to the Presidency held up for the closest scrutiny. Extravagant, reckless statements and even claims which may not be true seem to me an inevitable and perhaps essential part of the process by which the voting public informs itself of the qualities of a man who would be President.”
These statements, of course, resonate today. President Trump has unsuccessfully pursued many defamation lawsuits over the years, leading him to vow during the 2016 campaign to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” (One of his most recent suits, dismissed in 2016, concerned a Univision executive’s social-media posting of side-by-side photos of Trump and Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Trump alleged that the posting falsely accused him of inciting similar acts.)
The article is here.
The New Yorker
Originally posted August 23, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
The class of professionals best equipped to answer these questions has largely abstained from speaking publicly about the President’s mental health. The principle known as the “Goldwater rule” prohibits psychiatrists from giving professional opinions about public figures without personally conducting an examination, as Jane Mayer wrote in this magazine in May. After losing the 1964 Presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater successfully sued Fact magazine for defamation after it published a special issue in which psychiatrists declared him “severely paranoid” and “unfit” for the Presidency. For a public figure to prevail in a defamation suit, he must demonstrate that the defendant acted with “actual malice”; a key piece of evidence in the Goldwater case was Fact’s disregard of a letter from the American Psychiatric Association warning that any survey of psychiatrists who hadn’t clinically examined Goldwater was invalid.
The Supreme Court denied Fact’s cert petition, which hoped to vindicate First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press. But Justice Hugo Black, joined by William O. Douglas, dissented, writing, “The public has an unqualified right to have the character and fitness of anyone who aspires to the Presidency held up for the closest scrutiny. Extravagant, reckless statements and even claims which may not be true seem to me an inevitable and perhaps essential part of the process by which the voting public informs itself of the qualities of a man who would be President.”
These statements, of course, resonate today. President Trump has unsuccessfully pursued many defamation lawsuits over the years, leading him to vow during the 2016 campaign to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” (One of his most recent suits, dismissed in 2016, concerned a Univision executive’s social-media posting of side-by-side photos of Trump and Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Trump alleged that the posting falsely accused him of inciting similar acts.)
The article is here.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
5 ways thinking philosophically helps you choose more wisely
By Russell Downham
Russelldownham.com
Originally published November 14, 2014
Life is confusing. What does it all mean? So begins philosophy.
When you think philosophically, you question your assumptions about yourself, other people, and the world, to clarify your perspective and deepen your understanding of what matters to you. You can pursue these questions as far as your curiosity desires, but when you think philosophically about your choices, you naturally have a practical end in view: you want to make the wisest choice you can.
‘Philosophy’ literally means ‘the love of wisdom’, but even if its heart is in the right place, can thinking philosophically really help you to make wiser choices? Aside from the intrinsic value, and pleasure of making philosophical sense of your choices, can it also make practical sense to do so?
Thinking philosophically does make practical sense, when it engages with life as you experience it – questioning, but never ignoring, your pre-philosophical commitments, taking seriously everything that matters to you, including the things you think shouldn’t. When you are honest and determined not to be holier-than-thyself, thinking philosophically about your life enables you to create more meaningful connections between who you are and what you do, leading to choices that truly reflect your own personal values.
The entire article is here.
Russelldownham.com
Originally published November 14, 2014
Life is confusing. What does it all mean? So begins philosophy.
When you think philosophically, you question your assumptions about yourself, other people, and the world, to clarify your perspective and deepen your understanding of what matters to you. You can pursue these questions as far as your curiosity desires, but when you think philosophically about your choices, you naturally have a practical end in view: you want to make the wisest choice you can.
‘Philosophy’ literally means ‘the love of wisdom’, but even if its heart is in the right place, can thinking philosophically really help you to make wiser choices? Aside from the intrinsic value, and pleasure of making philosophical sense of your choices, can it also make practical sense to do so?
Thinking philosophically does make practical sense, when it engages with life as you experience it – questioning, but never ignoring, your pre-philosophical commitments, taking seriously everything that matters to you, including the things you think shouldn’t. When you are honest and determined not to be holier-than-thyself, thinking philosophically about your life enables you to create more meaningful connections between who you are and what you do, leading to choices that truly reflect your own personal values.
The entire article is here.
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