On the Moral Application of Chainsaws
The Scales of Justice We all face moments when our consciences and our preferences wrestle with moral dilemmas. Very few of us will face the big moral dilemmas, like President Harry Truman giving the OK to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, but smaller moral dilemmas face us almost daily. We love pineapple and buy one even if we know that people far away were dispossessed of their land to allow big business to grow this very one at a profit. In an age of climate-change worries, a twinge of conscience surely afflicts many of us when we take our car even though our errand is only a few blocks away. Or when we shovel a pile of rhubarb leaves, carrot tops and other garden-harvest detritus into the garbage because the composting service is just too inconvenient. Indeed, effort-saving convenience ...