Ken Greiff, PES Member In these days of struggle, it is fitting and proper that we remind ourselves of hopeful strategies, strategies for (as Martin Luther King would put it) the creation of the Beloved Community. The reading for this colloquy will be from a Gandhian website called Soulforce.  The readings are: (1) A Credo [...]

Erik Younge and ERTF members Please join us for an exciting, inspiring, informative program of poetry and discussion on what it means to be Woke...how to ask the hard questions. How to stand up for what is right - even when it is difficult and scary. Ending Racism Task Force members recite poems written from [...]

Christian Hayden In a strange turn of events, Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning Beloved became fodder for a political ad in the gubernatorial race of Virginia in 2021. Though it is somewhat unsurprising that targeting literature crafted by a Black woman could score easy political points, nevertheless it is unsettling that one of the greatest [...]

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 [...]