moral Archives - Michael Ignatieff

Human Rights, Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues

Michael Ignatieff — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 09:00:00 +0000

Although globalization of our economies has not produced globalization in our hearts and minds, the geography of our virtues has changed. We now play out local conflicts before the whole world; and when we justify ourselves, we do it to strangers linked to us by new media. That is what moral globalization means—the steady enlargement of the audiences before which we feel we must justify ourselves.

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Civil Courage and the Moral Imagination

Michael Ignatieff — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Goodness is fragile, a philosopher once said. Cleveringa’s example is respected best when we acknowledge how rare it was. We should ask ourselves whether we have the capacity to believe so fervently in a better future that we make it our judge.

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Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television

Michael Ignatieff — Sun, 01 Sep 1985 09:00:00 +0000

Television has become the principal mediation between the suffering of strangers and the consciences of those in the world's few remaining zones of safety. No matter how assiduously its managers assert that the medium's function is merely informative, they cannot escape the moral consequences of their power.

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