Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society This week we return to the archives with a platform, on Zoom, first presented on September 4, 2016. Felix Adler, the founder of Ethical Culture, chose as his first lieutenant John Lovejoy Elliott: a man best known for building caring relationships and friendships that served the marginalized of New [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society As a society with more weapons than people, the United States clearly has a “gun culture.” Does that explain the plague of mass shootings, crime-related killings, accidents, and suicides by bullet? Causes proffered for this epidemic include mental illness, toxic masculinity, economic desperation, and profiteering by weapon manufacturers, as [...]

Sarah Barringer Gordon University of Pennsylvania Are we heading toward a theocracy and Christian nationalist state? Sarah Barringer Gordon, the Arlin M. Adams professor of constitutional law and a professor of history, is renowned for her work on the ways that religious liberty developed over the course of American history. A frequent media commentator, she [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society While enjoying the aesthetic brilliance of Italian Renaissance art this summer, Hugh was struck by the many representations of violence between men and women. In light of the Supreme Court’s attack on women’s bodily integrity, we must understand the dynamics that fuel this violence: both the oppression of women [...]

Sara Woods Philadelphia Futures For more than 30 years, Philadelphia Futures has supported the aspirations of students who represent the first generation in their families to attend college. CEO and President Sara Woods will discuss the transformative opportunity of the organization’s recent merger with Steppingstone Scholars. Together, they will ensure all Philadelphia students graduate from [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society Much of American culture praises those who speak their mind, regardless of the impact of their words. They like people to “tell it like it is”. This tendency is supported by the assumption that keeping things to yourself is unhealthy. Many believe that regular cathartic truth-telling is necessary to [...]

Chloe Bakalar Temple University Engineers are stereotyped as problem-solvers, not philosophers. But philosophy and engineering are deeply intertwined in artificial intelligence, which increasingly powers the world. Philosophy is necessary to understand the values embedded in AI tools and to push for desirable outcomes. Bakalar discusses the challenges of creating a values-based approach to AI, as [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society For those who prefer ponderous and ethically dynamic topics on Sunday morning, the subject of “fun” may seem trivial. We often think of “having fun” as something childish, not something to be pursued by sober-minded adults. But author Catherine Price disagrees. Things that are “really fun” are not simple [...]

Russ Feingold former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, is perhaps best known for his sponsorship, with John McCain, of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. He is now president of the American Constitution Society (ACS), a national, 250-chapter network of lawyers and law students. Feingold will explain how the ACS offers [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society Caring deeply about other people, a community, or a project, is part of living a good life. But in our unpredictable world it also can lead to heartbreak, a form of suffering with distinctive mental, physical, and emotional characteristics. How is heartbreak framed in our relationships and in our [...]