The discourse of 'ethics' has really taken off in the last fifteen years. The term, lifted from the technical vocabulary of the most austere philosophy, now circulates freely without recognizing any frontiers. It carries with it the seriousness, the dignity, the gravity of its Greek ancestors; it has succeeded, and not without disdain, in branding with a certain clumsy vulgarity its Latin equivalent, still so dear even in recent times to our teachers and parents:…
