Dershowitz: Be good because it’s the right thing to do

(Via garret) If it wasn’t for the interminable length of this “Letter to a Young Lawyer,” Alan Dershowitz’ essay Why Be a Good Person? could be summarized as a parody of the old Wilfred Brimley Quaker Oats commercials. The “superlawyer” spends hundreds of words explaining why behaving in accordance with one’s religious beliefs is at best simple obedience and at worst calculating hypocracy. Fine, I can’t disagree with that too much. But the title of the article says we are supposed to learn why we should be good and in the end, all he says is that being good is the right thing to do. Wow! That’s impressive, isn’t it? Why is it right, though? The best he can do is a variation on the old definition of pornogrpahy: I know it when I see it. This allows for individuals to differ greatly, Alan, so how does your answer stand in light of current events? Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush see good as very different things, don’t they?