Ethics-Talk: The Greatest Good of Man is Daily to Converse About Virtue
Episodes
This show continues our series connecting the Duty to Remember and the Ethics of Memory to the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA). We begin this show with a photo of Wilmer Newlin “Newk” Grubb, an American Pilot who was shot down in North Vietnam in 1966 and died shortly after becoming a POW. Clearly alive in the photo (taken in 1966), and being tended to by a nurse, the photo was promoted by the Democratic Re...
This show continues our series devoted connecting the Duty to Remember and the Ethics of Memory to the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA). Joining us is the talented team behind "Fruits of Peace" a 2019 documentary film that focuses on the reconciliatory journey of Du Pham, a Vietnamese National, who fought for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. Du belongs to th...
In his book “The Ethics of Memory”(Harvard 2004) philosopher Avishai Margalit argues that although we have a duty to remember others, the nature of those duties shifts depending on our specific relationship to “the other”. We have a duty to remember friends and family, but that duty is weaker and even non-existent if the other is a stranger. In today’s show, we use the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) to ref...
This show continues our discussion on 9/03, which explored the connections amongst peace, justice and the Golden Rule. We continue discussing the relationship amongst these concepts, focusing today on the connection between impartiality and justice - a connection which Andrew Carnegie observed in 1907. According to Carnegie, justice “forbids men to be judges when they are parties to the issue”. Yet, Immanuel Kant seems to posit ex...
This show continues our discussion on 8/27, which focused on the role of visual objects in the Peace through Law movement. Discussing both the peace flag (created in 1897) and the Peace Palace, which opened in 1913, we noted how both play important roles in the "education piece" of the Peace through Law movement. These symbols not only provide a way of "entering the forest" of the history of this movement, but als...
This show marks two distinct but linked moments in peace history connected to the work of visualizing and concretizing the peace ideal that was(is) an important part of the “Peace through Law” Movement. August 27 marks the adoption of the International Flag of Peace by the Universal Peace Union (in 1897); it also marks the eve of the opening of the Peace Palace in The Hague (on August 28, 1913). In this show, we discuss the deeper...
The dropping of atomic bombs by the U.S. on Japan in 1945 caused Albert Einstein to exhort human beings to develop “a new manner of thinking” and with philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein and other scientists urged us to think in a new way” and “remember humanity, forget the rest.” In like manner, Shinzo Hamai, the first publicly elected mayor of Hiroshima following the bombing called for a “revolution of thought” in his Mayor...
In today’s show, we reflect on our series on the Korean War by focusing the philosophical dimensions that most resonated with us during this series. From the epistemological and psychological dimensions of the war involved in the PsyWar campaign and the ideological conflict on the Korean Peninsula, to reframing the war in a way that recognizes the thread of effort of women working for peace on the Korean Peninsula (such as done...
This show is the fifth show in a series focused on looking at the Korean War by looking at how the Sky was used in that war. We have discussed strafing and aerial bombardment by the USAF in the North and South. But also dropped from planes were millions of pieces of paper carried in “leaflet bombs”. Airplanes were also outfitted with loudspeakers. These “messages” carried by airplanes were part of the Psychological Warfare (Ps...
In this 4th installment of our series commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, we explore the philosophical dimensions of the conflict. "Epistemology" is the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of Knowledge. It asks, 'what are the conditions of Knowledge?' and 'how do we know when we know something?' The description of the Korean War as a "Forgotten War", and the fact that sp...
In this third installment of our series commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, Pulitzer Prize winning author and former AP investigative journalist Charles Hanley joins us as a special guest as we focus on the aerial bombardment of North Korea during the Korean War. In today’s show, we discuss the use of US/UN airpower during the Korean War, and its psychological and material impact to the ordinary person in North ...
In 2000, Charles Hanley, with his team of Associated Press investigative reporters (Sang Hun Choe and Martha Mendoza), won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for uncovering a hidden nightmare in a war known in America as the "Forgotten War". Hanley and his colleagues revealed, with extensive documentation, how the United States' policy during the Korean War included the indiscriminate targeting of Korean ci...
This podcast begins a mini-series focused on the Korean War, known in the U.S. as "The Forgotten War." We begin the narrative (enter the forest) of this complex story through the Sky, which, as will be discussed in future episodes, played a crucial role in the Korean War. The Fifth Airforce of the then called "Far East Air Force" (currently called "Pacific Air Force") of the U.S. waged both conventional war...
As governments in a subcommittee of the United Nations’ General Assembly were beginning to debate the content for what was to become The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1947, the NAACP submitted a memorial to the UN, titled “An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redres...
In his recent Press Conference with the Mayor of Atlanta, activist, rapper and teacher Michael Render (aka “Killer Mike”) urged people to “plot, plan, strategize, organize and mobilize”. Referencing the long battle towards equality assisted by organizations such as the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Teacher Mike urged us to place ourselves in this non-violent org...
One of the watchwords of the 19th Century Peace Movement (also known as the Peace through Law Movement) was "Organize the World!". In this show, we focus on that phrase, discussing the organization that peace activists called for, which included the creation of laws, of new courts, the education both of legal professionals and the public, and the equality of men and women (among other things). Our objective in this show ...
Prior to the U.S. entry into World War I (on April 6, 1917), ordinary citizens all over the world - many of them women - agitated to pressure states to create a court that allowed for the non-violent settlement of disputes. This court, The Permanent Court of Arbitration, was the result of the historic 1899 Hague Peace Conference that opened on May 18, 1899. The creation of this court was so monumental that May 18 was celebrated...