Free Republic

The ethically-challenged "ethicist" of the New York Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, who writes The Ethicist column has inserted himself into the Henry Louis Gates situation by urging the Harvard professor to sue in order to "pursue social justice." To see where Mr. Ethicist is coming from, let us start off with his laughable money quote in his current column on the subject of lawsuits: Gates should enjoy a cool one and then file suit, assuming he has legal grounds to do so. We Americans are often mocked for being overly litigious, but we are not nearly litigious enough. In the...

Caterpillar, the heavy equipment manufacturer, is moving to lay off more than 20,000 workers. These days such mass layoffs are sadly unsurprising, but are they ethical? If Caterpillar is to relegate legions of employees to the care of the public, it may not simply echo Ebenezer Scrooge: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Is there no COBRA?” Instead, it must use its considerable political clout to ensure that those programs are robustly funded, hardly a priority either for Caterpillar or its confreres among the Fortune 500. That is, if Caterpillar is to deprive thousands of people of a...

Nearly nine out of 10 journalists who made political donations gave to Democrats or left-wing groups, according to a bombshell new investigation into media bias - and perhaps the most shocking name on the list was the writer of "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times. The probe by MSNBC investigative reporter Bill Dedman revealed the names of 144 employees - reporters, editors, producers - from media organizations nationwide who have lined the candidates' pockets since '04. Underscoring the leftward tilt of the press, 125 of the workers, or 87 percent, ponied up only to Democrats and liberal causes,...

Perhaps it was the long, wet winter or its abrupt transformation into a hot, humid summer, but my own vision seems to have been obscured by low-lying fog in May and June. Below, I revisit several columns from those days that prompted particularly vigorous - and persuasive - disagreement from readers.[...] A woman wanted to build a lakeside dock but feared that applying for a permit would alert the authorities to her neighbors' unauthorized docks. I stated that her neighbors' flouting the law did not require her to do likewise, but instead of quitting while I was ahead, I...