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Below we explore spiritual questions applied to ethics.
Ethics address the ‘should’ & ‘ought’, questions about what is right. From private matters of conscience to issues of public concern such as business ethics and political judgment. We try to apply spiritual principles to these moral questions.
Posts for example address the dilemma of working parents between work and being at home for the children. What guidelines should be employed when disciplining children within the home? What should be the limits of tolerance, protectiveness, anger or impatience?
Human beings need to economically make use of the physical environment. Where should the balance be between valuing and preserving nature and exploiting it to meet the economic needs of a growing world population?
Can it be right to tell someone something they don’t want to know like their medical condition? What about euthanasia? How far should we go to prolong life? Ought we not take our own life?
Articles, linked to below, tackle how to approach political ethics using spiritual principles. Is it right to have a monarchy? How should we regulate free market capitalism? What are the right and wrong ways to deal with a country’s financial crisis? What about immigration policy and multiculturalism? What stance should we take to the numbers of refugees we take in. Should we be ashamed of the western world values. In relation to violence, how should we respond to the human misery caused by civil wars and lawless rogue states?
Insincerity and hypocrisy are criticised. But arguably white lies and pretence are needed to oil the social cogs of society. When is it fair to criticise those who don’t always practice what they preach? When is it wrong to gossip?
If discrimination and judging others are wrong, just how tolerant should one try to be? Posts below look at attitudes to criminals, layabouts, foul language, litter.
Should we put our needs before those of others? Should one give favours on the understanding we will get them back in return or should we follow the ideal of unconditional love? Do we get our own way too often?
Should we try to tell the difference between right and wrong? How much should one give to charities? How to evaluate one’s own private desires? Why does it matter if we go against our conscience? Are there really any impure thoughts? Is sexual imagery too explicit? Where is the harm in watching pornography. How does one become a better person?
Stella is known as a winner of BBC tv’s The Apprentice Her childhood was a painful one. “It was quite a lonely hard time for me.” Her father had abandoned her at a young age, leaving her mother Drusilla unable to care for her due to psychological ill-health. It wasn’t deliberate neglect. Her mother couldn’t … Continue reading Stella English
If doing bad things is caused by environmental circumstances rather than individual moral choice, then surely an eternal punishment after death would be unjust? And if you balk at the idea of evil then you may dismiss the idea of hell.
Historians have written about the rise of Nazi Germany and wondered how a civilized country could have become ruled by criminals trying to conquer Europe. How did well-intentioned educated people become so captivated by Hitler’s magnetism that they could accept secret police, concentration camps, slave labour, and nonsensical rhetoric of Aryan heroism and anti-Semitism? If … Continue reading Sell your soul – Could you do it?
Anders Behring Breivik murdered dozens of people in cold blood in Norway as a horrendous way of protesting about Islamic immigration. How should we respond? By reiterating democratic liberal values in favour of multiculturalism? Or seeing a warning sign about a society’s limits to tolerance of what is alien?
Lucy seeks and shows affection in the way she nuzzles up to me. But she has her faults like clawing the soft furnishings. I haven’t seen any signs of what I would call a social conscience in her makeup. No public prosecutor would take an animal to court on a criminal charge. It’s otherwise with human beings. We also have a will but is ours not one based on rational understanding? For unlike animals have we not a higher degree of mind that can see beyond the things of the senses?
Society as a whole tends to take polarised views of sexual permissiveness. Emotive language is used by those on both sides of the debate – one side being labelled as narrow-minded, prudish and moralistic and the other as being decadent, indecent, and exhibitionist.
Those with a more balanced perspective use more moderate language. They ask …
Morality has a bad press. It smacks of being judgemental and a blaming attitude. Discrimination is out and tolerance is in. Anything goes these days as long as it doesn’t cause harm. Many people do not think in terms of morality yet they feel that decisions should be made on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Those, who deny there are any personal rights and wrongs, nevertheless, emphasize the ideals of love, holism, and self-improvement. And even criminals usually acknowledge their crime is wrong deserving punishment if they are caught. So the question remains just how does one know what really is right and wrong?
Is it good to talk about the private lives of public figures? Like the sexual seductions of Dominique Straus-Khan, managing director of the IMF? This is someone who was heading for high political office. Or the widely reported affair of footballer Ryan Giggs with Big Brother star Imogen Thomas? What is more important — the human right to a private life or the media’s freedom of expression? Can talking about people we know be a good thing?
‘Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised’ said policeman PC Michael Sanguinetti in Toronto, whilst advising students about safety on campus. In so saying he unleashed a storm of outrage. The marchers seem to be implying that sexual signals have no meaning in the world of human interaction.
Although details of the raid remain sketchy, one can’t help wondering if the US could have tried harder to capture bin Laden alive and put him on trial rather than carrying out a summary execution. We don’t know to what extent if any there was any danger to the attacking forces bursting in on bin Laden of him detonating a hidden explosive device. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Williams, said: “I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done.” Few pundits have resisted the opportunity to ridicule him for this. Were they right to do this or was he right in what he said?
