Ethics News!

Return to Ethics

Ethics News!

Fall 2020

• Report from The WEIRDEST people in the world.

• Militia group arrested plotting to kidnap Michigan governor. [1]

• Covid therapy uses fetal tissue technology. [2]

• Nobel prize news! Crisper, women in science.

• A federal judge has ordered Twitter to reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly forged an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich in 2016. [3]

• Supreme court watchers: New session begins with public statements about gay marriage decision by two jurists. [4]
• Noteworthy friendship between RBG and Scalia.[5]
• Thoughts on Breonna Taylor police killing.
• Hotel Rwanda Hero, Paul Rusesabagina arrested. Rwanda Genocide Wiki
• Game theory in US politics.
• RBG
• Hotel Rwanda hero
• Former billionaire's altruism. Related topic: Effective altruism
• Farmworkers facing wildlife hazards.
• Results from our survey. Related article.
• Spokane's floridation decision. council vote, [6]. And related issues like incinerators. When to vote, when not to vote?
• Values at stake in wildfires. A short survey, if you would? Please click here to take this anonymous survey.
• Vaccine trial halted
• Values conflict in the teaching on history.
• Antifa murderer. I wouldn’t normally highlight this, but since we discussed Kyle Rittenhouse, it seems reasonable to include this case. Also a tragic case.
• Facebook to limit political ads close to election
• The Case of Kyle Rittenhouse

• Primary reporting
• National Review on Self-defense claim
• Reckless Endangerment defined

Spring 2019

• More bad parents -- college admissions scandal larger than thought.

• Dissent between Mueller and Barre on the gravity of M's report.

• Venezuela uprising

• Vets from Iraq and Afghanistan objecting to lack of visas for local collaborators.

• Pognant detail on Sri Lanka attacks

• Chart for today's class (was news recently).

• Supreme Court likely to allow citizenship question on census on separation grounds.

• Supreme Court to decide whether LGBTQ and transgender individuals are included in the Civil Rights Act.

• First malaria vaccine rolling out.

• Hair discrimination

• The Mueller Report

• Immigration numbers

• The Football Problem

• Sudan's genocidal dictator deposed

• This American Life -- the tattle phone

• Another Arab Spring for North Africa?

• 25th Anniversay of the Rwandan genocide

• Arguing over disaster relief aid.

• Blood money for Khashoggi.

• NPR story on NICD

• Nipsey Hussle story.

• Death Penalty and Religious freedoms in Supreme court debates

• Threat of aid cutoff to central american countries. This will be relevant to the immigration discussion.

• Religious liberty for Chick-fil-a?

• A significant exchange.

• American hero honored. (didn't find this on msnbc or nyt)

• Opioid lawsuit

• McDonald's to stop lobbying against minimum wage hikes.

• Smollett charges dropped.

• Shunning oxycontin maker.

• This American Life -- Jabberwocky

• College Admissions scandal followup.

• Attorney General reports results of Mueller report: exoneration on criminal charges related to collusion with a foreign power. not exonerated on obstruction of justice, but AG judges nothing to prosecute.

• Iowa Senator makes racist comparision.

• Catastrophic weather and flooding in several African countries.

• A Conservative argument on immigration from an anti-Trump conservative

• More on the college admissions scandal. How wealthy criminals prepare for prison!

• An important article about the history of racism, eugenics and nationalism in US History.

• Not this NZ Senator's best moment.

• Thieves get the wrong painting. A small moral victory.

• New Zealand massacre.

• College admissions bribery scandal

• Racist covenants on Spokane homes.

• Sexual assault in the military.

• How Federal Disaster Money favors the rich

• Methodist Vote on LGBT issues.

• Ilhan Omar controversy

• Podcast with Jonathan Haidt

• A quick survey.

• A culturally specific problem.

• ISIS partisan & U.S. citizen

• North Carolina Voter fraud case. Poignant detail.

• Point about group responsibility in Southern Baptist Sexual Abuse Scandal.

• Ilhan Omar controversy.

• Polling on Virginia governor's scandal.

• Jack Phillips is back in court.

• Are these napkins creepy or funny?

• Invisibilia podcast on the idea of your "future self".

• Should we conduct basic research on human gene editing?

• Governer’s past inappropriate behavior.

• New rules on handling sexual assault cases on college campuses provoking controversy.

• “Empire” star Jussie Smollett attacked with chemicals.

• Government shut down as lesson in "background" rules in moral system which distinguish what is legitimately "in play" in a conflictual decision making process.

• Maduro blocked from accessing Venezuela’s foreign reserves

• Controversy over high schoolers alleged disrespect of an older native american man.

• Research on Immigrants and Crime Rates

• Hidden Brain podcast with Hibbing

Fall 2018 Florence

• Current state of immigration issue 2

• Current state of immigration issue

• China interment camps

• Friday court filings related to possible criminal conduct in the Executive branch of government

• To whom does this statue belong?

• More on yellow vest protests

• Michigan legislature, known for gerrymandering, loses election and then tries to limit incoming governors’ ability to fix gerrymandered districts.

• Election Fraud Allegations in NC

• Emotional Confession of Di Maio's Dad to possible wrongdoing in family business.

• Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here's the Reality.

• Must read Immigration article

• Mattarella speaks out for cultural change in treatment of women in Italy

• New report on violence against women in Italy

• Demographics of race may have effects on threat perception and immigration

• US to side with Saudi Arabia in killing of journalist

• Report of survey research on values and political views

• We Can't Afford the Drugs That Could Cure Cancer

• I think this was a flash mob.

• Strong polemics and flash mobs expected today in case of vice-prime minister Di Maio's comments on journalists. Background article on the case against Rome M5S mayor, which prompted the vice primier's strong language

• Controversies in italian divorce law reform.

• And now, for something completely different

• As Rich Nations Close the Door on Refugees, Uganda Welcomes Them

• Examples of racism in the Election.

• "Blexit" -- a campaign to move African American voters away from the Democratic Party. [7] [8]

• Study on white / non-white's concern about environment and respective perception of concern.

• Synagogue shooter's views of immigrants.

• Megan Kelly defends and then apologies for defending “black face” Halloween comments.

• Khashoggi son forced to shake hands with likely killer of his dad.

• Alexander Soros Opinion piece on recent bombs mailed to prominent individuals and CNN

• US unilateralism

• Sachs opinion piece on politicians who do not act on climate change

• Salvini on "little ethnic shops"

• BBC article on Riace Controversy

• Neo-nazi anti-immigrant rock concert turns violent

• Florence artist Marina Abromovic attacked in the name of art!

• UN speeches for and against multilateralism and globalism. Later this term, we will read about globalism, which is a system of moral and political views advocating the weakening of national sovreignty in favor of multilateral agreements. It has clear implications for immigration, but also for a host of other issues. Read this article to get some information about where the US, France, and other countries are on this emerging moral perspective.

• ANPI demonstration planned for October 3, Piazza SS. Annuciata, 2:30 pm

• Follow the case of alleged sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh

• Femicide / Feminicido in Italy. But then, some quantitative evidence to the contrary

• Exploitation in the Italian garment industry.

Past semester's Ethics News!

• New research on Trump voters motivations [9]

• Let's try to look out for news stories with ethical dimensions and quickly identify them. You might post a link or just report your item in class.

• Check out Rev. Carleton Pearson's story in the new movie, Come Sunday

• Political movement toward Federal decriminalization of marijuana.

• James Shaw, Jr., Waffle House Hero. [10]

• New therapies for opiod and heroin use offer the prospective of “vaccines” which block the effects of these highly addictive drugs. Should users be required to take vaccines?

• Example from FIRE website: [11] of new attitudes toward liberty of thought and conscience.

• What are the ethical issues behind the raid of the president's private attorney's office?

• Details from a local radio story on the local congressional rep race: McMorris-Rogers (R) vs. Brown (D). supporters on each side show predicted MFT triggers.

• More chemical attacks on children, women, and male civilians in Syria.

• ongoing teacher strike in Oklahoma raises distinct ethical claim. (Not just homo economicus.)

• This might not seem like ethics news, but it does figure in our reading today: NYRB review article: Raised by wolves

• The New York Times just published an article stating that 87 million people's information was improperly shared during the 2016 election. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/mark-zuckerberg-testify-congress.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

• This Inlander article raises interesting questions about how values enter into community planning and development. [12]

• Consider attending an Ethics Bowl team scrimmage this month. More details from Dr. Maria Howard (howardm@gonzaga.edu)

• Police shootings of unarmed black men. The Sacramento case of Stephon Clark.

• Hero in French terror attack.

• "Catch and Kill" journalism in the case of Karen McDougal.

• Cambridge Analytica news. Consider hypotheticals.

• "Fairness" in trade. (Will come up in globalization discussions.)

• More k-12 student walkouts

• West Virginia teachers' strike offers example of inequity aversion, ethics in negotiation.

• Learning about the views of Jordan Peterson, who claims a right of conscience to not use new gender pronouns. See his wiki page.

• Quick change in gun control views. Today's student walkouts seem to be making a values statement.

• The dehumanizing effect of scripted call center interactions.

• Prisoner Death case

• Lottery Privacy Case

• Trey Gowdy's retirement statement - Tribalism

• The Islands and the Whales

• Weinstein Lawsuit holds up sale of troubled company - group resp

• The idea of Baby bounds: giving all youths money to start out with as young adults.
• [13]