Ethics matter. This is not only the tag line for the Carnegie Council. It is also the proposition of my work. Many writers take up ethical issues. But few have the vantage point of the Carnegie Council — a place where leaders from around the world come to share ideas, reflect on their experiences, and engage in public conversation.
Posted here are lectures, articles, and reviews reflecting my engagement with the Council’s activities. If there is a pattern, one might say it is opportunistic, seeking to add the ethical dimension to debates ongoing. One might also see a thread of realism. In my view, power and ethics are inseparable and are best considered together. …
Pillars of Ethics
Carnegie Council president Joel Rosenthal discusses three pillars of ethics—pluralism, rights and responsibilities, and fairness—with Council staff members Madeleine Lynn and William Vocke.
America and the World: Ethical Dimensions to Power
A discussion between Joel H. Rosenthal, Michael J. Smith, William F. Felice, and Donald Eastman that took place March 8, 2005.
It was the third in a four-part series entitled “America and the World: Ethical Dimensions of Power.”
Accountability: How to Treat Unlawful Combatants
If I were giving President Bush advice for his second term, I would argue that the new administration ought to establish an accountability mechanism–a task force or special commission–to review senior-level policy misjudgments that resulted in systematic abuses in at least three separate locations: Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq (Abu Ghraib).
The prosecution and conviction of prison guards has been a necessary first step. But accountability for policies that were deemed “tantamount to torture” should not end there.
