The following is excerpted from the book To Tell The Truth… Ethics Unwrapped.  We will continue to provide excerpts from the book in future posts.  In the meantime you may wish to read the entire book (?!) 

ETHICS: PRIVILEGES, VALUES and RULES

Society does not persuade us to be perfect, only to “go along to get along” for the good of the many. In fact, society and its laws persuade us to be alike, not unique, because it is easier to deal with, and regulate, similar entities.  It is within this framework, not ethics, that our society’s rules and laws are written:  just accept society’s values and obey its laws, and everyone will get along.

GROUP PRIVILEGES, VALUES and RULES

…What it’s all about

Any society needs a system of rules within which its members can operate to the general benefit. These rules are founded

ETHICS:  PRIVILEGES and VALUES

The following is excerpted from the book To Tell The Truth… Ethics Unwrapped.  We will continue to provide excerpts from the book in future posts.  In the meantime you may wish to read the entire book (?!) 

…What it’s all about

PRIVILEGES

We’ve noted that in writing its laws, society necessarily employs definitions appropriate to its aims.  Just as with equality, it has in fact done exactly that with the word rights. The law tells us that we have, for instance, “the right to remain silent.”  But we already own that right (to speak or not to speak is a matter of individual choice) and certain others as well, independent of society and before its law.  Our rights as human beings are absolute–givens.  What society’s law bestows are more properly privileges.  Privileges, like any group

The following is excerpted from the book To Tell The Truth… Ethics Unwrapped.  We will continue to provide excerpts from the book in future posts.  In the meantime you may wish to read the entire book (?!) 

ETHICS: RIGHTS

…What it’s all about

There’s nothing inherently wrong with group involvement in the advance of humanity.  To cover everything that must be dealt with, we share the load, and we do it rather well.  Each of us tends to specialize in what interests us most, and we each go about it in our own subjective way, just a little differently from the way someone else might do it.  We also share responsibility.  That we do this at all illustrates the innate wholeness of mankind, and that we do it as well as we do speaks volumes for the innate goodness of mankind.

The following is excerpted from the book To Tell The Truth… Ethics Unwrapped.  We will continue to provide excerpts from the book in future posts.  In the meantime you may wish to read the entire book (?!) 

EQUALITY: ETHICS and the LAW

…What it’s all about

Our laws are supposed to advocate justice, and perhaps they do.  But examine the word just.  It implies honest, moral, fair and impartial, among other things, and while the law proclaims these virtues, it cannot always employ them. What positive law does is to ensure due process.  This means only that it must follow the rule of law, its own law, which may be whatever the society that makes it, wishes.  The law must make concessions in order to accomplish what it claims to seek—”the greatest good for the greatest number.” The law must