The President on Ethics, Philosophy and a Better Society

In his address to the national seminar on his ethics initiative on 28/03/2015 , President Michael D. Higgins made  a number of points, including the following:

[As President of a society] “which has been affected acutely by the recent global financial meltdown, I consider it crucial that we collectively reflect on the structural, and indeed moral and philosophical, questions raised by this most recent crisis in order to ensure that we learn from the experience.”

“The current crisis has moral and intellectual ramifications that run very deep. It calls for an interrogation of what it means to be human and a conception of human relations that animates us as a society.”

“… Irish citizens have collectively shown a deep desire to examine the root causes of what has happened and to reconnect what has been sundered in our society and in our public discourse. This radical demand … also carries with it a constructive willingness to think and act in different ways even if the pathway for thought and action is not yet defined and must be fashioned through enduring intellectual work and social action.” (Source: full address available on President’s website. See also ‘Inequality challenges State, says Higgins’, Patsy McGarry, The Irish Times 30/03/2015)