Pope Leo on the Ethical Dangers of AI

Speaking on his first “social” encyclical, Pope Leo said the Roman Catholic Church, whose membership stood at 1.6 billion embodied souls around the world, was “called to interpret ‘new things’ of the age in the light of the Gospel and the dignity of the human person.”[1] He was on terre firma from a distinctly religious standpoint in being anchored in the Gospel stories, which include direct and parabolic preachments by Jesus of Nazareth. Regarding the dignity of the human person, which pertains as much to a humanist as a theist, that basis is not distinctly religious and thus can occasion or permit wandering into other domains such that virtually any topic relevant to mankind could be roped in and even subjected to supervening religious criteria even over criteria native to the topic’s own domain!

The full essay is at "Pope Leo on the Ethical Dangers of AI."

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1, Linda Bordoni, “Pope Leo Presents ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ Calling for Disarmament of AI,” Vatican News, 25 May, 2026.

Selfishness and Damnation on the Boston Subway

Imagine a crowded, standing-room-only subway car during rush hour in Boston, Massachusetts. Even though many riders are standing, a seated passenger keeps his backpack on the seat next to his own seat. It would be difficult upon seeing such a blatant display of selfishness not make certain assumptions about the man’s values and character. I did, twice on Boston subway trains, as I stood looking at one young man, and then another on another train about a month later who was doing the same thing. Because many of the train operators in Boston ignore their training by slapping the brake lever backwards all at once rather than gradually just before abruptly stopping at a station-stop, standing can be perilous. Once I found myself running through half of a trolley car to re-establish my balance because the driver had applied the brakes too abruptly.  The inconsiderateness for the riders could easily be inferred, and from that, we could say that the reckless employees suffered from the vice of selfishness. The same can be said of the drivers’ supervisors, for whom the word accountability was not in the English dictionary. With so much selfishness delimiting intending benefits to others that are intended by one’s decisions and actions, moreover, a dysfunctional organization and even an enabling society can be inferred. Some Christian theologians have sought to relate the ethical vice of selfishness to the religious sin of self-love, which as Pierre Nicole made clear in the seventeenth century, is mutually exclusive with Christian love from compassion. Even amid such clear relationships, the ethical and religious or theological domains should not be fused as if the two domains were actually one. To view selfishness self-love as containing both ethical and theological implications and yet hold that the two domains are qualitatively different—each having its own unique aspects—is the goal.

The full essay is at "Selfishness and Damnation on the Boston Subway."

Skepticism within Religion: A Prescription for Epistemological Humility

We tend to separate religion from skepticism, and we associate science with evidence even though of religion and science, only science is open to revision. Kierkegaard remarked that there is something absurd about religious belief, and yet a religionist should believe, and even without any evidence to back up the absurd. In fact, in the early-modern period in the West, religious belief was often assumed to have a higher epistemological status than philosophy and science even though the latter two are supported by the strictures of reason and the support of empirical evidence, respectively. I submit that it is precisely to the extent that religious beliefs are held to be certain that we should be modest about them in terms of what we can know. According to Peter Adamson, religions were once very open to skepticism, whereas the Aristotelian philosophers were certain of their epistemological certainty. Considering that varied assumptions have been applied by philosophers to their craft, they should be weary of their own claims of having achieved epistemological certainty. I contend that religionists should get back to being more tolerant of, and even invite skepticism, even within their own minds. Being humbly aware of falling short, both as an individual and as a species, of grasping true religious knowledge as it is, undeluded by our own limitations (e.g., opinions), is rarely the case as religionists make declarations as if with epistemological certainty.

The full essay is at "Skepticism within Religion." 

A Fortunate Man

Religion plays a prominent role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer, must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own father.

The full essay is at "A Fortunate Man."

Selfishness and Damnation on a Subway

Imagine, if you will, a crowded, standing-room only subway car during rush hour. Even though people are standing, a seated passenger keeps his backpack on the seat next to his. It would be difficult upon seeing such a sordid display of selfishness not to reflect on the person’s values and character. The flipside of selfishness would be obvious: an indifference towards other people, including that which might benefit them. Instead, selfishness, which is self-love that is oriented teleologically to the person’s own benefit (i.e., private benefit) at the expense of benefits to other people and even a society as a whole. The shift from the ethical domain to that of religion may seem easily done—people of bad character are likely to go to hell rather than heaven—but not so fast, lest we presume to be omniscient (i.e., all-knowing) and capable of promulgating divine justice. It is indeed very tempting to relegate selfish people to hell.

The full essay is at "Selfishness and Damnation on a Subway."

Religion, Ethics, and Psychology: Three Distinct Domains

Compassion is so salient in so many religions that it is natural to assume that religious conduct is moral, which is to say that it issues in ethical conduct. Yet, as Kierkegaard emphasizes in Fear and Trembling, the divine decree that Abraham receives in the Book of Genesis translates into murder on the (universally accessible) level of ethics. In being almost going through with sacrificing his only son, Isaac, Abraham is guilty of attempted murder, which is unethical. Abraham’s faith in the validity of the divine decree can thus be distinguished from morality. Unlike ethics, religion is sourced beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions, and is the domain is thus transcendent even as it is also immanent in the world. Even though ethical principles and faith can dovetail, as in five of the Ten Commandments, it is important that the two domains—morality and religion—are regarded as distinct, and thus with their own distinctive bases and criteria owing to the respective natures of each domain. In his book, A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber attempts a mega-synthesis of many fields of knowledge. Such a broad project carries with it the pitfall of making conjectures that draw on or involve domains of knowledge outside of one’s own. I think the risk of such over-stepping is significant coming from both vantage-points in morality and religion (i.e., ethics and theology) when the two domains are mingled or intertwined without due recognition of how they are sui generis, of their own genus (type). Wilber even conflates a third domain, that of psychology, with those of ethics and religion. I begin by looking at morals and religion in general, holding off psychology until I address Wilber’s theory specifically.

The full essay is at "Religion, Ethics, and Psychology."

Experience of Transcendence: The Core of Religion and Spirituality

Transcendence beyond the limits of human cognition, and thus reason and even religious beliefs is notoriously difficult for the human mind to grasp; even if as I suspect the human mind has an instinctual urge to yearn to go beyond cognitive and perceptual boundaries (i.e., beyond our ordinary experience), that same mind also has a dogged proclivity to cloth wholly-other religious objects (e.g., a deity) in familiar garb. Transcendent experience itself is immune, hence focusing on the experience itself is superior to getting caught up with the presumably certain divine attributes of a religious object, yet even such experience can be held back, or unduly circumscribed, when the transcendent reference-point is rendered conveniently familiar. Hence the dictum against graven images.  

The full essay is at "Experience of Transcendence."

The essay pertains to chapter 3, "Spiritual Leadership Revised," in Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.

Kierkegaard’s Socratic Task: Delivering a Christianity of Inward Faith

Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of (being) the single individual, especially in the subjective pursuit of truth. Before Socrates, truth (and morality) was to be found externally, in culture and tradition, and thus in an objective sense. Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of the individual’s subjectivity in the pursuit of truth; that truth can be internal without devolving into relativist nihilism. The Danish philosopher appropriated what he had learned from Socrates methodologically in the self-declared “Socratic task” of auditing “the definition of what it is to be a Christian.”[i] Behind Kierkegaard’s authorship is “the task of becoming a Christian.”[ii] This applies to helping others—as a Socratic midwife!—to become Christian and, relatedly, to Kierkegaard’s own willingness accept the inexpressible grace of being sacrificed by the Danish Church—those self-declared Christians actually oriented to money. Kierkegaard ironically exclaims, “I am not a Christian.”[iii] Such irony! “I do not call myself a Christian,” Kierkegaard wrote strategically, “but I can make it manifest that the others are that even less.”[iv] Herein lies the acceptance of being sacrificed in the interest of truth. Kierkegaard observed that “’Christendom’ lies in an abyss of sophistry that is even much, much worse than when the Sophists flourished in Greece.”[v] The success of comfortable pastors justifying their earthly wealth theologically under the auspices of the Prosperity Gospel renders the Socratic Kierkegaard still relevant today.[vi] Fortunately, Kierkegaard would assure us that the individual Christian can still find truth within rather than outwardly comprehending the doctrines that the pastors, whose claim to being Christians is dubious at best, claim to know. In this essay, I show how Kierkegaard appropriates Socrates’ method in service of this point. The Danish philosopher gained from his Greek model the tools with which to undercut the doctrines as knowable (by the theologians and pastors), so he could privilege becoming and being a Christian as a matter of personally discovered inward faith yet without positive epistemological content getting in the way.

The full essay is at "Kierkegaard's Socratic Task."

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[i] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 341.

[ii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View: On My work as an Author, the Point of View for my Work as an Author, Armed Neutrality, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 55.

[iii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 340.

[iv] Ibid., 341.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] On the historical shift in theological interpretation from anti-wealth to pro-wealth, see Skip Worden, God's Gold (Seattle, WA: Amazon, 2016).

Heaven Is For Real: Applying Kierkegaard to a Film

In Heaven Is For Real (2014), a film based on Todd Burpo’s best-selling non-fiction book of the same title, the evangelical Christian minister becomes convinced that his son, Colton, actually visited heaven while in surgery. Todd cannot make his faith-held belief intelligible to even his wife, Sonja. She misunderstands her husband and questions his obsession and even his sanity until Colton tells her something about heaven that applies to her uniquely. Then both parents are uniquely related in an absolute way through faith to the absolute—to the absurd, in Kierkegaard’s parlance. How Todd deals with his realization can be unpacked by applying the work of the nineteenth-century European philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard.

The full essay is at “Heaven Is For Real”

Faith Leadership and Ethical Leadership

Leadership under religious auspices can be distinguished from ethical leadership. The shift from ethical to religious principles is more involved than merely swapping one kind for another. The dynamics pertaining to faith are distinct. Kierkegaard makes this point very well in his text, Fear and Trembling. In short, an individual of faith must go it alone when the paradox of faith violates ethical principles.

Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.