The Ethicist
I loved the Ethicist's response (May 14) to Harvey Hauswirth of Provincetown, Mass., who asked if he was right to refuse the request of the 98-year-old woman who wanted to install a stairway lift in that Cape Cod cottage. 'That lift might be ugly, but some things are even uglier,' the Ethicist wrote, and then went on to talk about the sheer human beauty of kindness, compassion and generosity of spirit. It's worth noting that the ancient Greeks made no distinction between ethics and aesthetics. In other words, if an action looks good, it probably is good, legalities be damned.
Robert Blair Kaiser
Phoenix