It’s a famous quote we usually attribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” King used this quote in 1958 in an article he wrote for a periodical called The Gospel Messenger. He was likely quoting… Read More »The Bending of the Arc of the Moral Universe
The drive across Pennsylvania is longer than most people realize. This one took about six hours. I was traveling from Pittsburgh to a secluded part of the Pocono Mountains. The purpose of the trip was for a spiritual retreat. On one of the summits in the Pocono Mountains is an… Read More »Sex: Good, Better, Best — Remembering Fr. John McNeill
The teacher asked a classic moral question to get us thinking: is it right or wrong to kill another human being? I was in high school. It was through discussions like this that I developed a basic understanding of moral decision making. Indeed, after the question was asked, the discussion… Read More »Context and Moral Decisions
It’s a course I usually don’t teach. But an instructor was needed. While it’s outside of my program (graduate psychology), I agreed to be available for this undergraduate course because of the topic: ethics. As the course began, I explored the differences between ethics, morality and law. People understand law,… Read More »The Way We Live – and Views that Divide
It was 1975. In a classroom with about three dozen college freshman, a simple question was asked: do the means justify the ends? Morally, does achieving a result that is good allow an individual to do anything it takes to achieve that good result? Is it moral to kill people… Read More »A Means to an End