I hadn’t realized that that was a fundamental philosophical dictum, but it’s sure looking that way. Thomas Pogge, a very big name in philosophical ethics, has been accused of being a serial sexual harasser, all while running a high profile Global Justice program at Yale. I say “accused”, but this very well written, very thorough, well documented account from Buzzfeed doesn’t leave him much wiggle room. As often seems to be the case, we’re looking at decades of constant allegations. He’d been accused when he was at Columbia, but of course that was ignored when Yale hired him. And then the accusations kept coming, and they kept being handled by university administrators who had a vested interest in keeping their superstar happy.
“It breaks my heart to have to say it,” said Christia Mercer, a former colleague from the Columbia philosophy department, “but it’s clear that Thomas uses his reputation as a supporter of justice to prey unjustly on those who trust and admire him, who then — once victimized — are too intimidated by his reputation and power to tell their stories.”
It is dismaying that someone can cultivate a public reputation for morality while acting as such a creepy sleaze with students.
Ahh, well, this is GOOD news – at least he isn’t an astronomer.
Dismaying, yes; but not unusual. Morality has always served as a cover for bullies, predators, and general scumbags.
Just throw it on the pile with all the others.
Just offhand, I’m trying to think of anyone who has a public reputation for morality who isn’t either a sleaze, a huckster, or someone who says that some particular group should be either locked up in prison forever or killed. (Or some combination of the three.) So far I haven’t been able to think of any.
you know I am surprised at myself that this is mostly yes and ?
it just barely registers like finding another roach after finding hundreds
very sad bleak feeling
uncle frogy
Not sure if you would class the following as a deepity but I like it any way.
Convince the world that you are an early riser and you can sleep to midday, everyday.
Re: the philosophical dictum. I believe it is from Simone de Beauvoir.
Re: #4. How about Jimmy Carter?
I have a suspicion that the culture of high-profile philosophy is part of the problem here. The pattern may be broader and arise in other areas, but in academic philosophy I fear it is very clear that an aggressive style of argumentation is often a successful strategy for promoting your career– and the people that ‘suits’ are often aggressive personally as well. At the very least, I think it contributes to the continued predominance of men in the field, which seems to be worse in philosophy than most other academic fields. The advantages of status and position enable the kind of behaviour this case involved, in terms of the vulnerability and self-doubt of the women, the opportunities that positions of status and influence afford to men disposed to take advantage of young women, and the way institutions fail to deal with misbehaviour by the powerful and privileged males involved.
@4 Vicar
As far as I know, nothing fucked up has come out about Fred Rogers.
re 8:
Absolutely winner of that position of:
Carter’s recent comments about how he firmly supports the separation of Church v State plus his creation of the Habitats For Humanity, firmly supports his ascendancy to this.
*cough* “The Moral Arc” *cough*
@#8, The Other Lance
Fair enough; Carter had his share of faults (he seems to have retired from public life with the cancer diagnosis, poor guy), but I can’t say he was a sleaze, a huckster, or a would-be tyrant. On the other hand, I don’t know that his reputation was for morals as such. (But that’s a quibble.)
@#10, Matrim
Now you’re talking. :)
The Other Lance @ # 8: Re: #4. How about Jimmy Carter?
Jimmy “Human Rights” Carter, the president who honored the Ford/Kissinger agreement to fund, arm, and politically support the Indonesian regime throughout its genocidal (>100,000 killed) scorched-earth campaign against the East Timorese independence movement?
Jimmy Carter, who rushed to defend the nuclear power industry during and after the Three Mile Island plant disaster when it could have been shut down in the US with widespread popular support?
Jimmy Carter, who followed the advice of Zbigniew “the Democratic Henry Kissinger” Brzezinski to “give the Soviets their own Vietnam” by organizing and arming Afghan muhajideen fanatics and collaborating with Saudi Arabia to launch a pan-Islamic campaign against the decadent infidel world, a plan so grossly immoral, illegal, and counterproductive that the Reaganistas immediately adopted it and escalated it to a white-hot flame?
James Earl Carter (like every other living US President & their top foreign/military police aides) deserves a front-row seat in the defendants’ section at a war-crimes trial in the Hague.
(That said, I agree that J. Carter easily ranks as the least-immoral of US presidents in the last two generations…)
@#14, Pierce R. Butler
Yes, yes, Carter was extremely problematic. (He was also, although it now seems hard to believe, a right-wing Democrat. He got the nomination because the left-wingers were split between other candidates and acted as spoilers for each other. So, weird though it may seem, the same people who gave us the Clintons and Rahm Emmanuel were also behind Carter. Weird, huh?)
But the question wasn’t “is there a moralist who hasn’t done terrible things”, it was “is there a moralist who isn’t a sleaze, a huckster, or a would-be genocide?” Carter’s sins had to do with making bad decisions which enabled other people to be hucksters and genocides, and — unlike Hillary Clinton, whose history is absolutely loaded with that sort of decision — he seems never to have accepted huge quantities of money from them.
I recently learned that when he was in the Marines Fred Rogers got tattoos on his arm, that’s why he always wore sweaters. I suppose back in the day some would have considered that morally suspect.
As for me, I’ll never forgive him for Donkey Hotey.
I really wish the sarcasm tags had taken off, and based on the second part of the post I assume the first is intended as a joke so my response is only to the second half, Donkey Hotey is no worse than Low Key Liesmith from American Gods and as appreciator of both good and bad puns I say that is a pretty good one and worthy of respect :P
I was always partial to Fargo North, Decoder.
well I had to look it up to be sure but I heard that stuff about Fred Rogers and the Marines before. It is not true you can look up Fred Rogers on snopes .com or wikipedia. I think I know where that idea came from. There has been somewhen a mix-up between Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) who had been the Marines
uncle frogy