Letters from Our Readers

What's Good

As a scholar of philosophy, I sympathize with Manvir Singh's unsettling acceptance of moral nihilism ("The Post-Moral Age," September 16th). I experienced a similar reckoning nearly two decades ago. I now call it my anti-epiphany.

Singh writes about how, despite his intellectual qualms, he ultimately made peace with a particular response to moral nihilism known as moral fictionalism, according to which we pretend as best we can that there really are objective moral truths, because it is eminently useful to do so. What that approach overlooks, however, is that a belief in objective morality also has considerable downsides. In a meta-ethical sense, it encourages hypocrisy, arrogance, and the adoption of intransigent positions that promote endless conflict. Fortunately, a number of ethicists have come to the conclusion that humans have sufficiently robust mental resources to adopt an alternative way of thinking. I, for one, would have us rely on our considered desires. The cultivation of rationality and compassion can go a long way toward remedying and even precluding various human behaviors and societal ills without the superfluous discord that moral judgments and attitudes so often introduce.

Joel Marks Milford, Conn.

Memory Wars Ben Taub's alarming report from the front line of Norway's spy war with Russia reminded me of my own Cold War childhood, in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, in Shetland ("The Dark Time," September 16th). Just as Russian vessels linger today in the port of Kirkenes, Eastern European fish-factory boats, some of which were known to be used for espionage, ringed the Shetland Islands.

The discusses how Soviet forces helped to wrest Finnmark from the Nazis during the Second World War, and how, today, Russia has manipulated the memory of that period to suit its long-term military objectives. Readers who are interested in this history should be aware of a lesser-known campaign by Allied forces in northern Russia toward the end of the First World War, which came after Lenin made peace with Germany. This episode, too, touched upon my family: in 1918, my father, a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, boarded a gunboat on its way to join American, French, and other Allied contingents to fight against Bolshevik forces in Murmansk, one of the towns featured in Taub's piece. In a sense, this incursion marked the beginning of the Cold War.

Michael Peterson Lerwick, Shetland, U.K.

Eat Bray Love As a devoted keeper and friend of two rescued donkeys, Miles and Zephyr, I have to commend Frishta Qaderi for her efforts to petition DreamWorks to give proper credit and compensation to Perry, the donkey whom animators sketched and studied while developing one of the most beloved characters in "Shrek" (The Talk of the Town, September 16th). Although donkeys are gaining some popularity and acknowledgment through social media and film, the reality is that they remain at the low end of the spectrum of respect when it comes to the genus Equus. They have been used as beasts of burden for thousands of years—hauling goods, protecting herds, carrying Jesus into Jerusalem. But even that holy duty hasn't been enough to earn them an exalted status. I hope that Perry's story brings a little more recognition their way.

Abby Rhoads Lincolnville, Maine

•

Letters should be sent with the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to . Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.