What's New
EthicsEthics is a word we use all the time, but what does it really mean? How do we know what's ethical and what's not? To help us unravel this difficult concept, we turned to one of Canada's pre-eminent philosophers, Mark Kingwell. Mark has been engaged with Philia for several years and was a keynote speaker at several Philia dialogues. Mark shared his thoughts about ethics with us in this interview.
Doing Ethics
Now that we've got some ideas about what ethics are, we turn our attention to doing ethics. This involves more than simply acting in good conscience, says renowned ethicist and McGill University professor Margaret Somerville. Personal good conscience is necessary for acting ethically, but it isn't sufficient. "Doing ethics" is a process, a lifelong learning experience, and something we all need to learn how to do.
Tim Lefens' Story
"I was never a kind person," writes artist Tim Lefens. "It wasn't in my nature. My paintings were being shown in New York. I was swaggering through Manhattan and Italy. Total freedom. Total celebration…Total self-absorption. One day a friend asked if I'd show some slides of my artwork at a school for the severely disabled. What the hell, I thought. Why not? I had no idea what I was getting into..." This is Tim's story.
Framing Social Inclusion
Living in a diverse society means recognizing, respecting and defending difference. The concept of social inclusion pushes us to imagine difference in new ways that help us not only to appreciate difference, but to develop policy that is more inclusive. A document, written by Pamela J. Cushing and published by the Roeher Institute, looks at the literature on Social Inclusion and Exclusion, links it to other models, and provides some critical analysis along the way.