I can’t help but juxtapose lines from Primo Levi with the images the television brings, every evening, to the warmth of my own home. And I feel a desperate sense of disorientation. And shame.
Tag: morality
A new phone, a fancy car, a full fridge: for a long time, politicians assumed that prosperity was all it took to keep democracies running. But that view of human nature is now having serious consequences.
The recent images showing a wounded Palestinian tied to the hood of an Israeli military vehicle is not an isolated incident. Despite the accumulation of evidence indicating the Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the country’s politicians and officials continue to claim that their army is the world’s most moral.
Political battle lines are becoming increasingly entrenched, and opposing views are being pushed towards ever greater extremes. Language has become a battlefield. If morality pushes us apart, and religion does not help in the process, we may find a solution in our sense of humanity, writes German psychiatrist Manfred Lütz in Die Welt.
Francesco Profumo, a former Italian education minister and the current rector of the Open Institute of Technology, explains why artificial intelligence needs a voice like Father Paolo Benanti, the only theologian on the UN Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
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If We Were All Conscientious Objectors
Our Naples-based psychiatrist imagines a world where all professionals could deny care on the basis of religious objection.
We tend to think of Buddhism as a religion devoid of commandments, and therefore generally more accepting than others. The author, an Australian researcher — and “genderqueer, non-binary Buddhist” themself — suggests that it is far from being the case.
A new report has done a deep dive into the support (or lack of opposition) of ordinary Russians for the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine. Independent Russian media outlet Important Stories breaks down the findings, which don’t necessarily follow the rationale one might imagine.
People’s deplorable actions ultimately have more to do with socially induced fears and mistrust than some inherent evil. Fiction and tradition tells us humans are fundamentally wicked, but history says otherwise.
In Poland, the support for the war effort against Russia is linked not only to history but to an aggressive male-dominated narrative, tinged with tales of martyrdom and acceptance of sexual violence.
As people open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, some in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are criticizing the lack of a similar welcome for Syrians in 2015. Do we have a responsibility to offer the same level of help to all those in need — and are we even capable of that? The answer might just be found in philosophy.
While the strategic issues are still being debated, the Indian government has dismissed the moral issue by concluding a cheap oil agreement with Russia. But are Indian consumers prepared to accept the true cost of discount Russian oil?
For those aiming to serve the Islamic Republic of Iran as experts to train the public morality agents, there are now courses to obtain the “proper” training.
Contagion fears and extreme attachment to the internet are reinforcing that most traditional of moral injunctions
WASHINGTON — The name of the gathering almost sounded like an oxymoron: the “Humanist Clergy Collaboratory.” A meeting to organize religious leaders — for people who don’t believe in organized religion? “Well,” Amanda Poppei joked, “some people would say we’re not that organized.” But the humanist clergy — spiritual leaders for people who don’t like to talk about God but do like to gather for a moral purpose — are trying to get a lot more organized. The “collaboratory,” which Poppei hosted at Washington Ethical Society, the 73-year-old humanist congregation that she leads in Northwest Washington, brought together about 40 […]
The promise of eternal life gets a boost from the latest technologies, but there are troubling questions that go beyond science.
Coverage of social issues in Egypt is rarely even-handed. Instead, media outlets preach and bray, moralizing instead of taking a detached, just-the-facts approach.
TEHRAN — A member of the Iranian Parliament’s cultural affairs committee says he and his colleagues are “firmly opposed” to any Iranian legislator attending the World Cup in Brazil “for any reason” — primarily because the country should save money. In response to chatter about sending certain members to the global soccer event, Hojjatoleslam Seyyed […]