When Medical Progress is not Enough
In this article in the NYT from a few weeks back, there is this quote from Dr. Stefano Bertozzi, director of H.I.V. and tuberculosis for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
ethics
Of owls, ethics and other matters
There’s no denying the importance of biodiversity. When scientists, NGOs, policymakers and others try to convince everyone to protect biodiversity, they remind us of how we depend on it for livelihoods, medicines, soil protection and all kinds of other things, big and small.
So, naturally, we as humans have a selfish interest in looking after our world’s plants and animals.
Global Financial Markets: A Tale of Two Moral Publics
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On May 2 this year, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, the gigantic Wall Street bank, was interviewed on CNN by Fareed Zakaria (his show is Global Public Square). Towards the end of the interview, Blankfein set up a striking distinction between the two publics of Goldman Sachs, as he saw them, and the ethical standards relevant to each public. The exchange is worth quoting in full:
ZAKARIA: We're back with the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. And finally, when George W. Bush tried to persuade Hank Paulson to become secretary of Treasury, as you know, he tried a couple of times and finally, he got Paulson to agree. It was a great coup to have gotten the chairman of Goldman Sachs, the most storied name in finance, to come to his administration and now, here you are with a very different reputation, particularly in the public's eyes. Do you think you can right, do you think that a few years from now, this will all have passed and Goldman Sachs will still be regarded with the same kind of awe and admiration it was or is that world over?