Enzo

In 2025, when the film, Enzo, was released, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine was still in progress before being overshadowed in the media by fresh American and Israeli military attacks in Iran. The film distinguishes the respective attitudes of two Ukrainian construction workers in the E.U. state of France regarding whether to return to Ukraine to join the army. This contrast implies that patriotism, and, moreover, duty, is a weak force in human nature, even when a citizen’s country is in serious, existential trouble in being invaded by an empire-scale military aggressor.

The full essay is at "Enzo." 

The Pledge

Even though The Pledge (2001) is murder-mystery film, it is fundamentally a tragedy without regard to the murder. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a retired police investigator who loses everything because he is faithful to a pledge that he made to the parents of the young girl who had been raped and murdered by a serial killer. It is Jerry’s fidelity to the pledge that is highlighted throughout the film, and ultimately ends in his ruin. The film thus depicts what in Kant’s ethic is the ability of rational beings to be taken as promise-keepers bound by the promises we make as if they had the necessity of law.

The full essay is at "The Pledge."

Flight

With utility and consequences valued so much in Western society at least as of 2012, when the film, Flight, was released, the story-world of the film may seem odd in that doing what’s right comes out on top, even at the expense of knowingly losing benefits and incurring costs personally. In other words, deciding on the basis of conscience even at the expense of good consequences for oneself is possible even in a culture in which “saving one’s skin” rather than doing what is right is the norm. By immersing viewers in a story-world, a narrative with well-developed characters can highlight a societal blind-spot, and thus potentially result in a better society in which people make the effort to re-value their ethical values to the extent that their dominant values support consequentialism above standing on principle even though bad consequences for oneself can be anticipated. In the film, 96 out of 102 of the people on board survive the plane crash even though the metal bird had been in an uncontrolled vertical fall from 30,000 feet. How could the captain not be seen as a hero? If all that matters are results, 96 out of 102 is not bad at all, and being able to get out of a dive even as the tail stabilizer keeps pointing the plane downward is extraordinary.

The full essay is at "Flight."

Elon Musk’s Controversial Politics: Beyond the Financials

As U.S. President Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025, Elon Musk, shareholder and CEO of Tesla, announced that he would create a new political party (or “group” in European-speak). Musk opposed the projected trillions of dollars that the bill would add to the debt held by the U.S. federal government, though, as CEO of SpaceX, he was fine with cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to the poorest of the poor, and from food assistance while the defense budget was augmented. Musk’s proposed “America” group would likely draw support from Trump’s “MAGA” base, rather than from moderate Republicans and any Democrats. Whether Musk was more motivated by breaking up the political duopoly of the two major parties, or groups, to increase the practical options for voters or to split Trump’s support and punish the Republican party, such controversial political involvement by a major shareholder CEO is without doubt risky business. This is not to say that CEO’s should not be active politically apart from business strategy, for even business managers are citizens and thus may feel compelled to become active politically. This is to be lauded especially if the motive is out of duty to repair or otherwise improve a political system.

The full essay is at "Elon Musk's Controversial Politics."

Political religion: Hitler Youth

In 2025 at Harvard, Madeline Levy presented her dissertation in progress in a graduate-student research workshop, which I was privileged to attend in my capacity as a research scholar at Harvard. She was presenting how the Hitler Youth program in Nazi Germany appropriated from religion politically, thus in a secular context yet with the aura of a religious cult. Interestingly, most of the kids in the program had been in church groups. Almost two decades earlier, I had audited a course on Nazi Cinema at another university; the course was taught by an 81-year-old German man who had been forced into Hitler Youth. Unlike Stalin’s cinema, which was blatant Soviet propaganda, Nazi cinema was escapist (not counting the anti-Jew propaganda “documentaries”). In contrast, Hitler Youth was hardly escapist, as the program was steeped in Nazi ideology. Although that ideology was secular, casting even Catholic Europe as an enemy, Levy was making the case that religious paraphernalia was incorporated in the program nonetheless. She brought up the element on ontology, or being, which in turn led me to draw on philosophy to explain the kids as becoming moral agents in a Kantian sense. Although philosophy and theology are distinct, both can be applied to political theory in a historical context.

The full essay is at "Political Religion."

Acting Morally: Bhukti Yoga and Kant Beyond Duty

At Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025, a Hindu religious artist whose Hindu name is Srimati Syamarani, spoke on the art of spiritual life. A person is like the hand of Krishna. The hand puts food in Krishna’s body, so the entire body is nourished. The hand serving the body is a duty. So too is following the type of bhukti that is following rules and regulations out of duty. At some point, it will no longer be felt as a duty. In Kantian terms, this means not acting ethically by being compelled by reason—the necessity of the moral law that reason presents to us; rather, going beyond moral duty is to approximate the holy will, but not because it is the nature of finite rational beings to be good; rather, it is out of love of the moral law, including its necessitating us to act ethically. In bhukti devotion, however, it is not love of the form of moral law (i.e., it being an imperative, or command, of reason) that obviates the sense of duty to serve Krishna and other people, as in being a hand of Krishna serves Krishna’s body; rather, it is love directed to Krishna (and ensuing compassion to people) that transcends ethical obligation per se. This is not to say that bhukti practice can go beyond feeling obligated due to a feeling, whereas it is by the use of reason that Kantian gets beyond duty, for it is the feeling of respect that empirically motivates a person to treat people as not only means to one’s own goals, but also as ends in themselves. As rational beings, we partake in reasoning, albeit in a finite way, and reason itself has absolute value because it is by reason that value is assigned to things. Even so, it cannot be said that a devotee of Krishna in Hinduism can go beyond acting out of duty due to an emotion (i.e.., love or compassion) whereas for Kant it is just by reasoning that a person can go beyond acting because one is duty-bound.

The full essay is at "Acting Morally: Bhukti Yoga and Kant Beyond Duty."

On Embodied Souls in Business: Hinduism and Christianity

A man whose chosen Hindu name is Vridavanath spoke at Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025 on the plight and ultimate aim of an embodied soul as described in the Bhagavad-Gita. A conditioned soul/self (atman) that has entered the material realm and is thus subject to karmic consequences can come back to the divine source of all: the One that is in all. As material, embodied beings while alive, that is, as both biological and spiritual, we are prone to getting locked into dualities of attachment and aversion, which in turn play right into suffering. We forget that we are wearing material masks, and that our real identity (atman) is greater than our material roles that we assume in our daily lives. Through our actions, we bind ourselves by the law of karma. Before being born into the material realm, a person’s unembodied soul (atman) knew Krishna, but as embodied, the soul/self relates to other corporeal bodies rather than to other people as spiritual beings and thus in compassion. Why does Brahman or Krishna—the respective impersonal or personal notions of Absolute Truth—create the world with separateness from the divine included?  Furthermore, how is a devotee of Krishna to navigate working in business, given the separateness woven into the very fabric of our daily existence as material and spiritual beings?

The full essay is at "On Embodied Souls in Business."

Transcendence in Action in the Bhagavad-gita

Chaitanya Charan spoke at Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025 about action and transcendence in the Bhagavad-gita. Arjuna faces adversity even though he is a good. That life is suffering is a Noble Truth in Buddhism. Why noble? Even suffering can be ennobling. That life can be unfair is a given in the Gita. Getting less than we think we deserve can be from our bad karma in a previous life. So, we can’t really know what we actually deserve, so it is important to accept results. They aren’t in our control anyway, whereas our present karma is. So, the advice is to be committed to doing your best in acting, but with detachment on whatever results from the action. I contend that detachment from pride and especially arrogance goes automatically with the transcendence of detachment from not only the results of one’s actions, but also from the created realm itself, which by analogy looks smaller and smaller as the planet Earth does from a spacecraft on the way to the Moon.

The full essay is at "Transcendence in Action in the Bhagavad-gita."

Shankara: Knowers-of-the-Self Should Not Fight

I contend that Shankara imparts too much of his Advaita Vedanta Hindu philosophy’s penchant for renunciation in interpreting the momentous chapter two of the Bhagavadgita. I know in having translated a text that it is all too tempting to “embellish” a text by re-phrasing beyond what is necessary for clarity. Sometimes, in reading another translation of a text that I am translating, I am astounded to find even entire subordinate clauses that do not correspond to the original text in its language. I believe Shankara does something similar in both his emphasis on the self (atman) as non-agent and his disavowal of action in favor of renunciation. Krishna’s advice to Arjuna is not to renounce fighting in the war, which even Shankara describes as righteous even though it is for earthly power. To fight dispassionately is obviously not the same as not fighting (i.e., not acting). Krishna is not in favor of Arjuna’s refusal to fight, whether Arjuna has knowledge of the Samkhya (i.e., discrimination of metaphysical reality: that eternal, immutable atman is Brahman).

The full essay is at "Shankara."

Elected Representatives in a Republic: Is Any Sense of Duty Remaining?

I suspect the notion of duty had by 2018 taken a rear seat, pushed out by self-centered ambition, in many if not most democracies in the world. In the ancient world, office-holding by lot stemmed the impact of people desiring office. Of the latter, the desire for personal gain would, I submit, be more likely. In contrast, finding oneself holding an office by lot was more likely to be accompanied by a sense of duty rather than personal ambition. Of course, ordinary citizens could find themselves voting in councils or legislatures—but would that necessarily be so bad?

In the American experiment, office-holding was originally thought of as a civic duty of the wealthy class. Landless citizens were cut off from even voting. George Washington did his duty as the first U.S. president, then went home to Virginia; he had done his duty (and then some). Once he decided not to run again, he did not, while still president, call it quits even if he was personally done with the office. I submit that that sense of duty had been lost by the twenty-first century.

The full essay is at "Duty in Public Service."

Aimee & Jaguar

Aimee & Jaguar (1999) is a film based on a true story centering on Felice, a Jewish woman who lived in Berlin until 1944 and belonged to an underground lesbian, anti-Nazi (spying) organization. To be a Jewish lesbian in Nazi Germany cannot have been an easy life, with possible catastrophe just around the corner on any given day.  In the film, Felice becomes romantically involved with Lilly, a mother of four and wife to a Nazi solder who is fighting at the eastern front. The film is essentially a love story between the two women. I want to draw out some of the ethical issues raised in the film—with the love story serving as my critique of two ethical theories—utilitarianism and duty-based ethics—that are implied in the film.  

The full essay is at "Aimee & Jaguar."

On the Duty of Public Service: The Case of Rep. Eric Cantor

Public service, such as holding public office and defending the homeland under attack, is rooted historically in a duty rather than being intended to further personal ambitions. Hence, public advancement is a reward for having gone beyond the call of duty in one’s public service. To be sure, it is not unheard of that an elected official views his or her post as a launching pad for personal enrichment, whether in terms of wealth or power. When this aim becomes primary, the duty aspect of the public service can easily fall away like a tadpole’s tail off a bumpy toad. U.S. House representative (and majority leader) Eric Cantor is a case in point, both in why he lost his seat and his decision to resign it early rather than finish his term.

The complete essay is at “On the Duty of Public Service”