The Casuist

Paul Denton takes on The Ethicist, and rightly so. I think the latter's existence is a sad, sad thing: he just spouts off opinions without giving people any deeper insight into the moral life, and dares to call it ethics despite the fact that sometimes his opinions are very dubious indeed (he has at various times encouraged people to lie and cheat and act vengefully, his arguments are frequently pathetically bad, and his attitude to his position, as expressed in interviews and the like, is simply irresponsible). He is, in short, paid to be a hack.