Category: Virtues and Vices
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Superman: The Moral of the Story
George Reeves (1914-1959) was the original 'Superman.' You know the character: "Faster than a speeding bullet . . . ." Reeves was murdered (or was it suicide?) in June of 1959. I remember a comment of my Uncle Ray at the time of Reeves' death: "He could stop other people's bullets, but not his own."…
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Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm and Mel Gibson
The L. A. Times reports that Mel Gibson's 2006 drunk driving conviction has been expunged. Here is what I wrote about the case at the time (1 August 2006): What's worse: Driving while legally drunk at 87 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone, or making stupid anti-Semitic remarks? The former, obviously. And yet…
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Inappropriate Niceness
Most of us prefer nice people to surly pricks. And no doubt we should all try to be nicer to our world-mates. But there is such a thing as inappropriate niceness. I am following at a safe distance the motorist in front of me. Then said motorist brakes for a jaywalker, not to avoid hitting…
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Master Desire and Aversion
It is a curious fact that a man who has no time for his own wife easily finds time for the wife of another. Not valuing what he has, he desires what he does not have, even though at some level he understands that, were he to take possession of what he now merely desires,…
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On Reverence
In The Weblog Handbook (Perseus Publishing 2002), Rebecca Blood writes: If you asked me what the weblog community needs, I would answer, stronger ties among webloggers from various clusters, more independent thinkers, and more irreverence. Much, much more irreverence. Everyone seems to take themselves so seriously. (p. 164) This passage demonstrates a pretty thorough misunderstanding…
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Advertising and the Lure of the Lucre
I received an e-mail from a fellow who offered me $35 to run an ad on the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms page of this site for a alcoholism/drug addiction resource. I declined the offer for the same reason I don't display any money-making gimmicks such as 'tip jars.' The work I do on this site…
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Is Greed the Engine of Capitalism?
The Financial Times reports on a piece of silliness from the Pope: Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday condemned the “grave deviations and failures” of capitalism exposed by the financial crisis and issued a strong call for a “true world political authority” to oversee a return to ethics in the global economy. One mistake the good…
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Hypocrisy, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Left
If, per impossibile, there were such a catalog as the Seven Deadly Sins as seen from the Left, hypocrisy would be in first place. Why? Although some who identify themselves as liberals or leftists can be counted among the religious, the dominant note of the Left from at least 1789 on has been anti-religious. Couple this with…
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Defining Lust
Before we can ask whether there is anything morally wrong with lust we have to know what we are talking about. What is lust? Here is a start: The inordinate craving for, or indulgence in, the carnal pleasure which is experienced in the human organs of generation. But this won't do as it stands since…
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Hypocrisy and Other Vices of Self-Presentation
My exposure of the Dictionary Fallacy was not intended to cast doubt on the utility of dictionaries. Far from it. Some of their entries are excellent starting points for philosophical inquiry. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hypocrisy is "assuming a false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real character or inclination, especially…
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The Color of Envy
There was a time when I thought that the expression, 'He/She turned green with envy,' was just an expression with no fundamentum in re. But one day in graduate school, at a dissertation defense, I observed a particularly vain professor's face acquire a decidedly greenish tinge as he watched a somewhat pompous but very bright…
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Idle Talk
From Franz Kafka: The Diaries 1910-1923, ed. Max Brod, Schocken 1948, p. 199: In the next room my mother is entertaining the L. couple. They are talking about vermin and corns. (Mrs. L. has six corns on each toe.) It is easy to see that there is no real progress made in conversations of this…
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Accusations of Hypocrisy as Themselves Hypocritical
The English 'hypocrite' derives from the Greek hypokrites, actor. Although one cannot use etymology to show what a word means or even what it ought to mean, let alone its 'true and inherent meaning' (there is no such thing), in the present case the etymology provides a valuable suggestion as to how the word is used…
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Hypocrisy in Reverse
Hypocrites are those who will not practice what they preach. They espouse high standards of behavior — which is of course good — but they make little or no attempt to live in accordance with them. Hypocrisy is rightly considered to be a moral defect. But what are we to say about those people who will not…
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Two Ways to Avoid Being a Hypocrite
There are two ways to avoid being a hypocrite. So as to have handy labels, I'll call them the liberal way and the conservative way. Liberal Way: Adjust your standards downwards to the point where there is no discrepancy between what you do and what you espouse. Take what you do and are inclined to do…