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Tag Archives: Ethics
Bayesian Ethics
As I’ve written before, one of my past wrestles is with Utilitarianism: that the moral act is the one with the best consequences regardless of what rules it breaks. I’m now firmly Aristotelian – aka a ‘virtue ethicist’ – we … Continue reading
Bonhoeffer
I quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer to a friend the other day. Bonhoeffer stood up to the Nazis and perished for it in a concentration camp. He is celebrated (pictured on the right) as a 20th Century martyr in Westmister Abbey. A … Continue reading
The Good Life
I used to be a strict Act Utilitarian – the moral act is the one that produces the most overall happiness or least harm. The undergraduate philosophy case studies all seemed clear cut to me. Knowing what we know now, … Continue reading
Posted in Aristotle, Ethics, Life, Psychology
Tagged Arete, Aristotle, Bayesian Brain, Bentham, Csikszentmihalyi, Ethics, Eudaimonia, Happiness, Mill, Moral Philosophy, Telos, The Harp Player, Utilitarianism, Virtue, William Blake
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Truisms ii) Sad but true
Three of Jenny Holzer’s truisms get under my skin. I was talking to another father on Friday, who’s just become a grandfather, and they positively annoyed him. They are: Fathers often use too much force A man can’t know what … Continue reading
Posted in Aristotle, Ethics, Life
Tagged Aristotle, Bayesian Brain, Children, Cruelty, Ethics, Fatherhood, Jenny Holzer, Motherhood, Sad, Truisms
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Cosmopolitanism
last week, in the middle of an all-day management board full of metrics, deficits, claw backs and targets I popped out to talk to 59 fiercely bright teenagers from 59 different countries on a Global Citizenship programme. As the bright … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Life, Work
Tagged Cosmopolitanism, Ethics, Global Citizenship, Human Rights
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Anger
Last weekend I had a ‘falling out’ at work on my mind. Someone had confronted me and asked to come to an important board meeting and I’d said No. The following morning the person stormed in and accused me of … Continue reading
Magnificence
I’ve talked to a lot of people about the Aristotelian virtue of Magnificence in the last two weeks. Magnificence feels a bit strong as a virtue one might aspire to these days, and indeed the good news is that most … Continue reading
Art
A super article in the New Scientist explains – as artists have intuited down the centuries – that the brain works to a different set of rules than the real world. We have misread shadows and mirrors from Velazquez Rokeby … Continue reading
Guts
I studied philosophy at Oxford and in ethics was drawn to John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism. Human happiness as a basis for morality seemed more attractive than rules and commandments and all the thought experiments seemed to suggest the ‘right’ … Continue reading
