Ethics

A commercial started off with some chefs at an 'Italian' or 'Tuscan' looking culinary institute. At first I thought it was for the Olive Garden. Yet the commercial turned out to be for Fancy Feast, a brand of cat food. Why the hell would a cat deserve a meal prepared by an Italian or Tuscan trained chef? For that matter, why is wet pet food even tolerated? I'm pretty sure dry pet food is perfectly nutritious. 

I went to mass on Sunday night to try to give my mind an hour of peace. And it worked. I didn't think about the bar exam the entire time. However, I did consider the ethics of charitable giving. Not that giving to charities is bad, but claiming those contributions for tax-related deductions. If you claim those contributions, doesn't that nullify the purpose of giving? Giving to charity should be about giving up your hard earned income. You are giving with the purpose of providing for the less fortunate, not so that you can get a break on your taxes. 

I've also been thinking about torture. This summer in Dublin I took a course in international human rights. For a few classes we discussed torture and under what circumstances it should be permitted. This season on 24 has Jack before a Senate committee for his supposed violations of U.S. torture policy. Now much time has been wasted about what exactly constitutes torture (waterboarding, shabeh-chair, etc.), but what Jack does is no doubt torture. An argument that has been successfully made, at least by the Israeli Supreme Court (and recognized by the European Court of Human Rights), is that torture should be permitted only when the victim has information necessary to stop an imminent terrorist attack on a mass of people. I'm not sure why Jack doesn't make this argument, as it seems all of the situations he is in directed at preventing a terrorist attack.