Turning Chaplains Into Military Ethicists
The Canadian Forces Chaplain School and Centre (CFChSC) at Canadian Forces Base Borden, where I work, started its annual Intermediate Ethics Course this week. The course is a career course […]
“I Made Horrible Mistakes”: Regrets Of An American Torturer
Diagram of stress positions, from a US military handbook for interrogators. A day after reading a very disheartening Religious News Service story about how nearly two-thirds of Americans […]
Jeffrey Toobin on ”Cafeteria Government”
Whatever one thinks of Ms. Davis, Jeffrey Toobin’s short essay on the New Yorker website raises some interesting points about whether religious accomodation amounts to “cafeteria citizenship” and even to […]
Is PTSD A Defence For Moral Lapses? The Case of Senator Walsh
In yesterday’s post on military medals and integrity, I mentioned that embellishing one’s credentials is a fairly common failing. A case in point is U.S. Senator John Walsh […]
Worth Repeating: E.B. White on Democracy
E.B. White was one of the great writers, journalists and stylists of mid-20th Century America. I was delighted when the New Yorker magazine served up this short response that he […]
Book Review: Ian Buruma, Year Zero: A History of 1945
Ian Buruma. Year Zero: A History of 1945. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013. I am not entirely sure how to describe Ian Buruma. He’s a Dutch citizen based […]
Confessions Of Two Liberal Gun Owners
I have am ambivalent relationship with firearms. I never acquired a firearms license until I was in my thirties and then became interested in American Civil War reenacting. In the […]
The Archaeology Of Compassion
Those ethicists who claim that the capacity for altruism is hardwired in human nature may take heart from this story. Yesterday’s New York Times carried a piece about an archaeological […]
Sam Harris On Science And Morality
Our Man In Dublin asked me what I thought of this TED talk yy Sam Harris on Science and Morality from 2010. Sam Harris, if you haven’t heard of him […]
Religion May Be Linked To Generosity, Study Suggests
The Chronicle of Philanthrop, a US-based nonprofit organization, has just published a study suggesting that the more religious a society is, the more generous it is. The study examined charitable […]