Ethics for Everyone

Moral wisdom for the modern world.

by Michael Austin

Just Garbage?

We must seek a solution to the problem of environmental racism. As things stand, poor minorities bear the environmental burdens of the consumption of the rich. Read More

Morality, Science, and Religion

It is clearly true that atheists, theists, deists, agnostics, and people of all different schools of thought commit moral, compassionate, and kind acts. But this doesn’t show that morality is independent of religion in its metaethical or normative aspects. Read More

Plato, Temperance, and Sports

Whether or not you are taking a temperate approach to sport and physical exercise will not only depend upon the physical impact, but upon your other commitments in life as well. Some phases of life or forms of life allow us more freedom than others. Read More

Do We Really Have Any Character Traits?

Our best chance at being deeply fulfilled as human beings is to acquire and practice the intellectual and moral virtues. We need practical wisdom, honesty, courage, generosity, and other virtues to flourish. This assumes that humans do in fact have virtues, and this view has come under challenge in recent years. Read More

Virtue and the Environment

If temperance were a virtue prized in our society, we would take better care of the natural world. We would be less prone to inflict damage upon it for self-indulgent reasons. Read More

Want a Better Life? Read a Book

Making a habit of reading books is useful for training the mind for critical thought. For this to occur, one must learn how to read well, or skillfully. Read More

The Need for Patience

One reason that patience is a virtue is that it is a means of connecting members of a family and community together in deeper ways. Read More

Why Does God Allow Evil?

The existence of evil and suffering is a philosophical and existential problem for those who believe in God. In this post, I discuss some responses that have been given by those who maintain faith in the midst of evil and suffering. Read More

Facebook Addiction?

Those who engage in social media would do well to limit their time, perhaps to 15-30 minutes per day, just as the wise person will limit the number of drinks he or she has on any given day. Read More

Parents, Children, and Biological Ties

There are many adoptive children who never seek nor do they have the desire to seek out their biological parents. However, others do, and many of them describe the need to know their biological parents as deep and unrelenting. Whatever the future of the family holds, we need to give proper weight to the needs and interests of all children. Read More

Authentic Love, Kierkegaard, and U2

Why commit to one person, when a variety of self-gratifying pleasurable experiences can be had with many different people? Those who have truly integrated erotic love and divine love understand that committed married love is valuable for human existence in ways that the person who merely seeks personal pleasure cannot experience or understand. Read More

Facebook Free: A 30-Day Experiment

Quitting Facebook can give you more free time to pursue the sorts of activities that make up for a truly happy and fulfilling life: deep relationships, physical activity, productive and meaningful work, spirituality, and the pursuit of excellence in life. Read More

Quitting Facebook Could Make You Happier

People who are on Facebook believe that others have happier lives than is actually the case. All of those happy pictures and status updates about success have an impact on how we judge our own lives, even though they are not entirely accurate depictions of the lives of others. Read More

Rejecting Moral Relativism

"Isn't all morality relative?" There seems to be a fairly pervasive acceptance of moral relativism in much of our culture these days. However, the answer to this question is pretty clearly "no." Read More

Some Hard-to-Measure Resolutions

Our truest and deepest happiness is to be had as we grow in character and give ourselves away to others, for their good. These kinds of resolutions, though hard to measure, are worth pursuing. Read More

Self-Knowledge and Religious Faith

In one sense, the motives for what we believe about religion are irrelevant. In another sense, they are very important. A bit of self-knowledge can be useful as we consider whether or not there is a God. Read More

Self-Knowledge, Character, and Friendship

Some work in contemporary psychology confirms the philosophy of Aristotle, which can also be useful in our quest for self-knowledge. Good character and good friends are conducive to self-knowledge. Read More

Self-Knowledge: Problems and Potential Solutions

Self-knowledge can be difficult to acquire, but there are concrete steps that we can take to achieve it. Read More

Know Thyself?

Self-knowledge is important for fulfillment, but it is sometimes difficult to acquire. However, there are steps we can take to help us cultivate our capacity for self-knowledge. Read More

Get Your Own Life, Parents

Having a more personally fulfilling life is good for you and your kids. As you avoid living vicariously through them, it will take the pressure off and allow your kids to explore and enjoy sports, music, art, or whatever it is that they choose to pursue in their quest for a good and fulfilling life. Read More

Paterno and Penn State: What the Rest of Us Can Learn

I've always respected Joe Paterno and the Penn State program, and as many people are right now, I'm disappointed in all that has come to light in recent days. Rather than comment on the failures, though, I'd like to consider what moral lesson the rest of us might take away from this scenario. Read More

How to Make Happiness Endure

"Fate" can take away some pursuit, interest, or passion that contributes to our happiness. However, if we have diverse interests, and are able to cultivate new ones, we are not at its mercy. Resilience is key to lifelong happiness. Read More

Is Your Brand a Cult?

Some advertisers try to associate their brand with the human quest for narrative, community, and transcendence. But this emotional branding seeks to bypass reason, and we should look elsewhere for the satisfaction of these deep human desires. Read More

Willpower and Temptation

The intentional exercise of self-control can help us overcome temptation. There is a body of evidence from psychology and philosophy to support this claim. Contemporary psychologists and an ancient philosopher also offer similar advice on how to cultivate this character quality. Read More

Freedom of the Will and Moral Responsibility

As an advocate of freedom of the will, I don't believe that we perform all of our actions freely. Some of them may be determined by forces external or internal to us. Read More

Food for (Almost) Everyone

When someone is unable to provide food for themselves, assisting them is not a matter of charity, it is a matter of justice. Read More

God of the Gaps Arguments

Theists have made inappropriate arguments based on a God of the gaps strategy. However, there is more to this issue than meets the eye. Read More

The Beauty of Sport and Why I Love Arsenal

What is most important in sport--beauty or victory? Why not both? Read More

Choosing to Believe?

Is religious belief, or the lack of it, a choice? In one important sense, the answer is clearly yes. Moreover, there is a solid argument that reason is not at home in a naturalistic world. Reason, rather, finds its home most naturally in a theistic worldview. Read More

Sex and the Soul

Thinking about some findings from the book, Sex and the Soul. Read More

Michael W. Austin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University.

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About Ethics for Everyone

I believe that the ethical insights of philosophers past and present are relevant to our lives in very practical ways. "Ethics for Everyone" is a place to explore these insights for the purpose of improving our lives.