A wonderful newspaper, and it seems radio, column is The Ethicist by Randy Cohen. It is like an advice column for the morally confused. You can browse through some archives to get acquainted. . Open Planning Project Executive Director Mark Gorton interviewed Randy on the subject of the ethics of driving.
| Mark Gorton: | I know people who live in the city, who drive around the city to do, you know, even simple errands. What’s wrong with that? |
| Randy Cohen: | Everything. |
| (Randy is speaking specifically to people driving in Manhattan …) | |
| Randy Cohen: | The word we ethicists use to describe the kind of the philosophy your friend is espousing, that’s called being selfish. |
| What’s wrong with that is they knock me down when I ride my bike. What’s wrong with that is they pollute the air. What’s wrong with that is the fumes from their cars destroy the facades of buildings. It imposes this tremendous expense simply to maintain the roads and it’s particularly vile, morally indefensible in New York City where there’s excellent mass transit. There’s absolutely no need for the private car in Manhattan. Other parts of the city it’s a more ambiguous problem. |
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There’s much more to the interview than my forty second excerpt. The full interview runs about nine minutes. You have nine minutes. Go watch it
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