Rented Virtue
We are very fluent in blunt, materialistic, capitalist questions: What? How soon? How much? What I hope that we can learn to do is add questions of moral imagination to that mix: questions like “Why?” and “To what human effect?” and “How much is enough?”
The On Being Project • Living the Questions
In his book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory , the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argued that the modern world had lost the sort of shared moral language that was once provided by virtue systems, such as religion. I think that’s half-right. We have lost something with the erosion of religion, perhaps, but we’re still bound by an ethical... See more
Derek Thompson • The 26 Most Important Ideas For 2026
Burniske warns, "Markets are a powerful technology that is meant to serve society's virtues, but markets are dangerous as a virtue system in-and-of themselves. If we continue to allow markets to dictate our virtues, we will perpetuate a society that the majority now whisper is selfish, divisive, imbalanced - threatening, even." With everything in... See more