He had taken on the role through a romantic attachment to the societal virtues of the BBC, not, I felt, through any desire to take up arms in a cultural war zone.
It's a bit of hyperrefined self-justification on the part of Oswaldo, the dandyish hangman, who cites the virtues of his societal role as his dispassion — his indifference to whether he hangs a person or not — in contrast with the "thirst-quenching" pleasure of a passionate, extra-judicial hanging: "The good part about frontier justice is it's very thirst-quenching.
Ethics are increasingly related to societal wants (framed in terms of social virtue), and less with traditional absolutes of right and wrong, good and evil.
Douglass' proposed instead a federal corporation that would purchase tracts of land and then resell or lease them on favorable terms to the freedmen, urging that this arrangement was "more fully consistent with the principle of self-reliance" and give "greater societal recognition of the freed people's virtue in providing for themselves".
The story that he tells is one of relentless depravity, of societal destruction wrought in the name of rigid political virtue.
Over and over, in the movie his ego insecurity, and acceptance of societal stereotypes, lead him to misjudge her loyalty and virtue.
Still, it is difficult to show that a society has a moral claim on its members' labor, talents, or virtue that compels its members to contribute to societal well-being no matter what.
Thus, our model lacks a broader societal perspective and integration of other important elements of trust such as virtue, goodwill or moral integrity[ 15].
This tax would have the added virtue of raising the cost of the lightning trades done by computer -- that have no societal value whatsoever -- to grab fleeting imbalances between bids and offers.
The most significant societal ills that Mr. Miller decries in "Resurrection Blues" are offshoots of the Reagan-era legacy of selfishness as a virtue.
