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Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life.
When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)
Raise your hand if you’re familiar with Craigslist.org. Chances are, there’s one that serves your community. And it’s extremely handy for job listings, housing, dating, selling your old crap or buying new old crap. Really, it’s ingenious. But why’s it [...]
So, I’m of the ethos that if you don’t like your meal, you send it back. It’s how I was raised, and I don’t have any sense of shame about that. When you pay for something, you should get your [...]
Paying a decent gratuity to each person on my list takes a huge chunk out of my funds just when I need money most to treat my family to a pleasant holiday. Honestly the whole practice makes me – and I’m not proud of this – just a bit resentful. Here’s how I overcome my Grinch attitude.
For myself, I see ethics as easily separable from religion. Steve argues, if I’m understanding him aright, that we are accountable ultimately to God, and that that is the only true source of our morality and moral obligations. Without a supreme being, our actions are meaningless: ‘without moral weight’. If we are accidental, we have no need to concern ourselves with ethics.
I would argue, on the contrary, that our accountability to our fellow humans quite suffices to encourage our desire to behave in ways that ensure society functions properly. But more than that, I believe it’s in our nature as humans to want to do good (as well as bad).
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Previous Posts
Coding Ethics...
posted 2:49:15pm Jan. 22, 2012 | read full post »
Can Ethical Companies Do Business With Unethical Leaders?
posted 3:49:39pm Jan. 02, 2012 | read full post »
New Years Resolutions: Are We Lying to Ourselves?
posted 10:51:42pm Jan. 01, 2012 | read full post »
Is Craigslist Who We Really Are?
posted 9:15:55am Dec. 18, 2009 | read full post »
How Do You Complain - Gracefully?
posted 1:29:56pm Dec. 17, 2009 | read full post » |
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Joan Ball is a business professor at St. John’s University in New York and the author of Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life.
Everyday Ethics is a place to discuss how we live a good life and finish well in a technology-driven, culturally-diverse, rapidly changing 21st century environment where “good” and “well” are considered by many to be relative concepts.
