Word: moralizers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...believe, as Jenny E. Heller seems to ("Ashamed to Be an American Abroad," Opinion, Jan. 6), that America has been "unwavering in the pursuit of the good and the just" over its history, but is only now, because of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, in danger of forever losing its moral authority over the world...
These are precisely the moral issues that the philosopher Peter Unger addresses in his recent book, Living High and Letting Die. Unger comes down firmly on the side of contributing. As he writes, "Is it really seriously wrong not to do anything to lessen distant suffering; or is it quite all right to do nothing?....I argue that the first of these thoughts is correct and that, far from being just barely false, the second conflicts strongly with the truth about morality...
Unger's deeper point in the book is to reject just that kind of a reaction. Behavior we intuitively consider to be moral, he argues, is often in fact immoral. "[E]ven as our responses to particular cases often are good indications of behavior's moral status," he writes, "so, also, they often aren't any such thing at all." He dedicates the rest of his text to explaining, through various puzzles and analogies, why "living high and letting die" is immoral behavior...
...three Next Generation movies so far, Star Trek: Insurrection stays closest to the spirit of the television program, incorporating themes and plot devices common throughout the Star Trek series. It relies on a storyline with a strong moral dimension--the quality which truly sets Star Trek apart from most other science fiction TV programs and movies. Like the TV series, this movie is also full of nineteenth and twentieth century references: when Data malfunctions, Captain Picard calls him back to reality by singing Gilbert and Sullivan. In the twenty-fourth century universe of Star Trek, such references might seem anachronistic...
...heart, Ellis is a moral satirist torn by his attraction to what he criticizes. There are scenes which are nothing more than masturbatory lists of famous names--"Brooke Shields; John Stamos, Stephanie Seymour, Jenny Shimuzu [sic]". And so many brand names make an appearance, from Alaia to Prada to Yohji Yamamoto, you'd think he had a product placement contract. It seems to be Ellis' convenient shorthand for character sketches. When Victor undergoes a transformation to a law student, we know he is different because he now wears a Brooks Brothers suit and drinks Diet Coke. London and Paris become...