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"One can not do right in one area of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in another. Life is one indivisible whole." - Ghandi This is true of indiv

"One can not do right in one area of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in another. Life is one indivisible whole." - Ghandi This is true of individual contributors, but it becomes progressively more relevant for people whose primary role is setting the vision for other people. The best companies tell the same story to their employees, investors, users, and journalists. Their people, products, marketing, and culture is one indivisible whole. A homophobic CEO could run an oil company just fine. It's much harder to do that for Mozilla, where brand, community, and ethos is a much bigger point of differentiation than the products themselves.

magicalist 13y ago
Independent of Eich's wrongs, no human exists that is "right" in all areas of life. A demand for someone who is right in all areas is how you get the blandest of all people in politics: they dare not utter an actual opinion lest the media snatch it up and hang them with it. So they say absolutely nothing with a whole lot of words. I'd rather see actual humans in positions of power, struggles with life and all.
- coffeemug 13y ago
  > No human exists that is "right" in all areas of life. Being right in all areas of life is a personal and cultural struggle, a never-ending pursuit of an elusive destination. That much is obvious. Still, some people are further along on this path than others, and one would hope that these would be the people who occupy positions of power.
humanrebar 13y ago
"Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone...." Among other things, this is a hypocrisy issue. It has been unironically stated elsewhere in these comments that it is good to be intolerant of intolerance. That can actually true, but it is hypocritical to be intolerant in the name of inclusiveness.
- SimHacker 13y ago
  Intolerance of intolerance is a well known and thoroughly debated philosophical issue, and the consensus is that it's ethically justified, good for society, and not hypocritical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance The tolerance paradox arises from a problem that a tolerant person might be antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance. Michael Walzer asks "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue". Philosopher Karl Popper asserted, in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1, that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance. Philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
wwweston 13y ago
I appreciate the idea of holistic morality, but if Gandhi's statement is true, then there's no such thing as a person who is doing right, since the number of ways you can be engaged in (and even habituated to) arguably unethical behavior is so great.

magicalist 13y ago

Independent of Eich's wrongs, no human exists that is "right" in all areas of life. A demand for someone who is right in all areas is how you get the blandest of all people in politics: they dare not utter an actual opinion lest the media snatch it up and hang them with it. So they say absolutely nothing with a whole lot of words. I'd rather see actual humans in positions of power, struggles with life and all.

coffeemug 13y ago
> No human exists that is "right" in all areas of life. Being right in all areas of life is a personal and cultural struggle, a never-ending pursuit of an elusive destination. That much is obvious. Still, some people are further along on this path than others, and one would hope that these would be the people who occupy positions of power.

humanrebar 13y ago

"Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone...." Among other things, this is a hypocrisy issue. It has been unironically stated elsewhere in these comments that it is good to be intolerant of intolerance. That can actually true, but it is hypocritical to be intolerant in the name of inclusiveness.

SimHacker 13y ago
Intolerance of intolerance is a well known and thoroughly debated philosophical issue, and the consensus is that it's ethically justified, good for society, and not hypocritical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance The tolerance paradox arises from a problem that a tolerant person might be antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance. Michael Walzer asks "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue". Philosopher Karl Popper asserted, in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1, that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance. Philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."

wwweston 13y ago

I appreciate the idea of holistic morality, but if Gandhi's statement is true, then there's no such thing as a person who is doing right, since the number of ways you can be engaged in (and even habituated to) arguably unethical behavior is so great.