Interesting question, but the illusion here is to think that atheists face any special problem. Let's take the issues in turn.

On morality: suppose God exists. How would that make morality objective? Someone might think that if God commands something, that makes it morally right. But it's long been pointed out (at least since Plato's Euthyphro) that this way of thinking about things is problem-ridden. What if God commanded torturing all blue-eyed babies? Would that make it right? Hard to see why anyone should agree.

Someone might say that God would never command any such thing. But why not? Presumably because God, if there is one, doesn't command evil deeds. In fact, if the theist wants to make sense of the idea that God is praiseworthy partly because he is good, there will have to be a standard of good and bad, right and wrong, separate from what God happens to will.

This may still leave it puzzling how there can be objective moral truths. That's too big an issue to tackle here, but it's worth seeing that theism isn't obviously in any better position than atheism when it comes to addressing this question.

Turn to logic. P and not-P can't both be true; that's the Law of Non-Contradiction. Is God responsible for that? If so, then presumably the Law of Non-Contradiction didn't have to be true; God could have made it otherwise. But how could God have made it otherwise? What are we even being asked to imagine if someone tells us that God might have made contradictions true?

The problem is that we can say that God is responsible for the truth of the laws of logic, but it's not at all clear that we have any idea what we mean when we say it If there is a problem about what makes logical principles objectively true, saying that they're true because God somehow dictated them is an "answer" that doesn't seem to provide any insight.

This seems like many other agreements two people might make, and not in a class by itself. On the whole, we should keep our promises, but we don't want the law to step in and enforce all of them. If a woman promises not to have an abortion, then she surely she should keep the promise. It would be the same in the other direction. A woman might ask a man to agree not ask her to have an abortion, if she should become pregnant. Morally, both have at least a prima facie obligation to keep their promises.

The law is another matter. If by making any promise we incurred the risk of being dragged into a courtroom, we'd make promises very sparingly. And then a valuable way of managing our personal relationships would be virtually lost. In this particular situation, either party would be able to foresee that the other could renege on the agreement. After all, as we all know, it's hard to predict what one will really want to do about something as life-changing as a pregnancy. A reasonable person wouldn't trust the other's word completely, and would avail themselves of good contraception.

I've thought about this issue a lot, as a vegetarian with two children (now both 12). We decided it would be better to let them choose for themselves. My thinking was: if we raised them as vegetarians, they would inevitably come into contact with meat and feel curious, tempted, guilty. Out of concern for their wellbeing, I wanted to avoid that. I also thought they would experience vegetarianism as an imposition and eventually rebel against it. Plus, I wanted them to have the experience of confronting a moral issue for themselves.

This is how things have turned out (so far)--When my kids were very young, all the food I prepared was vegetarian, but I bought cold cuts for sandwiches, let them order meat in restaurants and at school. At age 6, my daughter decided to stop eating meat. I practically discouraged this, giving her permission to change her mind, give in to temptation, etc. In fact, she became steadily more consistent, resolute, and outspoken. At age 12, my son made the same decision.

I think it's better for my children that they've made their choices, and I suspect these choices will be more permanent for being their own, but we'll see. I'm proud of them for the choices they are making right now, but I continue to think it's up to them. I recognize that it's hard having a diet that reduces your options and puts you at odds with everyone else.

Hello My Veggie Friend,

This is a question that also puzzles me. I am not sure if fairness is the central issue.

Let's deal with the resentful vegetarians who continue with the program because they 'cannot ingest meat properly.' My understanding is that born-and-raise vegetarians can adapt to a meat diet. They will encounter some initial stomach upset, but this will go away in short order. From a nutritional point of view, someone raised vegetarian could make the switch. From a moral and psychological point of view, the change will be much more difficult.

I don't know why you personally are a vegetarian. For me, I eventually became convinced when I read the classic article "Eating Meat and Eating People," by the fabulously smart Cora Diamond. I won't try to recount her views here precisely, but what I took away from the article was simply that people become committed to vegetarianism when their concepts of food no longer includes animals. I suspect the resentful vegetarians you describe aren't afraid of a tummy ache; they can't conceive of animals as food, and resent their parents for that. As adults, they want to change their conceptions of food but simply can't.

Our parents do shape who we are and how we see the world. Of course rebellion is always possible because that's the whole point of being a teenager. (A voguish teenage rebellion in my high school was to become a vegetarian. Perhaps those raised in vegetarian households strike back at their parents by sneaking out to fast food joints to scarf down big macs.)
Mature people will have to reckon with the concepts and values their parents imbued in them: religion, politics, fashion, music, food, the whole gamut. It's possible someone raised vegetarian will not forgive her parents for having shaped her in this way. But it is also possible she won't forgive them for raising her Catholic, or Republican, or preppy, or jazz-loving. This is the risk of parenthood.

I think the best we can do is to try to engage children in dialogue (in age-appropriate ways) to explain the paths we make through life. And be prepared for tears when you have to wrestle the hot dog out of little daughter's hand at the neighbor's barbeque.

I don't agree. I think that societies often see themselves, rightly, as linked with those who came before them and to those who will come after, and feel that responsibility is similarly extendable. After all, those of us alive today benefit to a degree from the actions of our predecessors, and if those actions were deplorable, then we should apologize for them, and more importantly, seek to provide restitution.

I am sure you are right about the cheap political motives of the governments who do the apologizing. This does not disguise the fact that where a wrong has been done, then those who are their descendants can meangingfully apologize. It is a bit like the case when a country's government apologizes for the hooliganism of its soccer supporters. Ministers are not saying that they themselves are hooligans and now regret their actions. They apologize on behalf of their country for the evil actions of some of their citizens. The fact that those events take place today, and other events took place in the past, is irrelevant, since they are all connnected to the country.

Dear Becky,

This sounds like a good project. I have some suggestions.

First, you might want to change your research strategy. Instead of google, I would take advantage of your academic library. Part of your tuition goes to fund library subscriptions to databases, such as EBSCO or Lexus-Nexus. These databases have tons of academic journals, featuring articles that have been vetted by professional philosophers (or economists or what-have-you). Google, on the other hand, will punch up whatever is popular. So my first recommendation is to go the database route because it might help you on the theory end of civil servant ethics.

My second idea is to do practical research on your local or state government. I know my state (New Jersey) is so renown for ethics violations by civil servants that there is a major push for ethics reform. In our case here, all state employees must watch a one hour power point presentation on professional ethics. I personally have vowed not to steal yellow stickies from the supply cabinet.

Finally, the issue of cultural difference is important. One interesting case study for you might be how taxes are collected around the world. The contrast between the U.S. and Italy, for example, is really lively!

Let me assume that the terms on which the company performed the work were fair and that the company actually delivered the work fully as agreed. In this case the company is really in the same position as other companies which are owed nothing by the country in question and perhaps never did business there. It would be a good thing for any well-off company or individual to make some contribution to the reconstruction of the earthquake-ravaged country. But the company that is owed the debt has no stronger moral reason to contribute. (It may have a stronger prudential reason, if the money is costly to reclaim or efforts to reclaim it would generate negative publicity. But this is a different matter.)

I think there is a difference between saying that something is right to do, and saying that something is morally justified (or justifiable). I think, accordingly, that killing in self-defense should be understood as morally justifiable (and justified in some cases), rather than insisting on saying that it has to be either right or wrong. The same goes for violence--it can be morally justifiable (and justified in some cases). Understanding this, we will not have to think of it as (simply) right or wrong.

Some approaches to ethics hold that dishonesty can never be the correct policy, on the ground (very roughly, for brevity here) that such a policy could never be recommended generally (or universally), and/or because dishonesty is in itself and inherently wrong. One can understand some sympathy for such a view but still not be completely convinced by it in some given case. So much as we might well have serious misgivings about dishonesty generally, we should also be extremely wary of the potential for a given case of honesty to amount to unwarranted (and unjustifiable) cruelty.

You feel guilty. Well, you should! But you obviously don't need me to tell you that, because you're "in agony" over what you have done and what some of the ramifications are now. But what to do about it?

First, the situation with your spouse sounds like, once the wrongdoing ceased, you handled things about as well as you could, given that you changed the relationship in fundamental ways and permanently by your wrongdoing. Would your spouse have had a better life if you had told your spouse the truth? Maybe, but we'll never know now, will we? Most spouses would insist that they would prefer to know the truth in such cases, and that should matter to us, but I also think that if you asked their friends and others who loved them, you might get different advice--the truth can be very destructive. So, as a matter of fact, I am an example of a spouse (and now, in advising you, of an advisor) who would argue in favor of good judgment and concern for who you tell damaging secrets to. Sounds like you did pretty well in the relationship the rest of the way. Human life is imperfect, but it would be hard for me to say that you handled the aftermath badly on this one. You recovered and built on the love in that relationship, and yes, that sounds very meaningful to me. The only one really hurt by your guilt was...you, who had to live with it all those years, and still. OK, sounds right to me!

Now, with the sibling. The sibling is feeling devastated. Now try to imagine, please, how your sibling would feel if you added to what they already know by including your own name on the list of the spouse's indifelities. So how many relationships have been destroyed once you have 'fessed up? And how many would be destroyed if you didn't 'fess up? And who gets damaged when these relationships are destroyed? This isn't to praise dishonesty or keeping hurtful secrets, it is, rather, just to say that good ethical judgment should certainly involve taking consequences seriously. Here is another question to ask yourself: What sort of person destroys a relationship with a sibling just to relive himself or herself of guilt? My own aswer would be: a very selfish person, and we have already seen that you can exemplify that particular vice at times, right? So will you do it again in these circumstances, or will you just live with your guilt (much-deserved as it is) but not allow it to stain others in damaging ways?

You worry that your children might find out. I suppose your sibling's ex-spouse could try to expose your nasty little secret for malicious motives. But the truth is that if no one has yet found out about this, from so many years ago, you are in a situation where it is one person's word against another, and the ex-spouse is not in a very credible position at the moment.

So my advice is to swallow your guilt and try to be the best parent and sibling you can be--in other words, to act now in much the same ways as you did with your own spouse. It seems you are not the same person as you were those many years ago. That's already an improvement! (And by the way, if I were your spouse or sibling, I really, really, really wouldn't want you to share your dirty little secrets with me!)

I do not think we have a right to expect prominent adults who do not represent themselves as role models to serve in that capacity, or to be held responsible for failing in that capacity, when they do.

To take a very controversial recent example, Tiger Woods became a celebrity because he is extraordinarily good at golf. He did allow and encourage that celebrity to be constructed into a highly marketable persona for endorsements and advertisements, and for these, he did take on a certain responsibility to behave in certain ways--or at any rate, not to behave in certain other ways (and I am sure that, as a matter of contract, his responsibilities were stipulated clearly). In failing to live in accordance with these quite legal stipulations, many of those who had contracted his services or used his name have now decided to hold him responsible for some things he has been discovered to have done, and many of his most lucrative contracts have thus been revoked or not renewed. But he is still, we assume, an excellent golfer, and just because we may not approve of his (now admitted) infidelities to his wife, it would be wholly inappropriate not to allow him to continue to play golf professionally, lest some of our (golf-admiring) children decide they would like to become "like Tiger."

The processes by which society singles out people to serve as role models for children is not (or at least mostly not) under control by those who are thereby represented as such. It makes no sense to hold people responsible for that which is not under their voluntary control. Insofar as Tiger Woods or anyone else does voluntarily seek to be identified in such a way, then we can fault them for their violations and seek to remove them from the list of those we regard as role models. But if this particular case or any of the many others like it haven't already proven the point for me, it should by now be seen as simply obvious that, as a society, we are doing an extremely poor job of identifying people as role models for our children. Highly successful professional athletes are credible as role models of being highly successful professional athletes. So unless being a highly successful professional athlete is our highest aspiration for our children, to use such a person as a role model is obviously foolish on its face. But it is our own foolishness, not the athlete's (unless, as I said, the athlete voluntarily promotes his or her own image as an example of a good role model for other more important aspects of human life).