Public life demands ‘tough’ corporate attributes rather than what it labels ‘soft’ personal ones – like love and gratitude. Simon Barrow argues that the communal cultivation of loving relation is needed to help redirect the official anonymity of the social order.

Conformity and concern about image are the enemies of truth, says Jill Segger. Yet they are everywhere in our testosterone-driven culture. Purity of heart enables us to respond to the unconventional or unexpected with integrity, as well as feeding clear-sighted conscience.

Atheists are often criticising the ethics of religious belief, says Giles Fraser. But do they base their own moral practice too much on what they are against?

Anti-arms trade campaigners say that a new 'ethics' report commissioned by weapons giant BAE Systems will not change public perceptions of the company, following a High Court ruling over investigations into corruption charges.

Talk of 'moral' foreign policy has led to 'liberal interventionism', notes Giles Fraser. And along that path of good intention has lain disaster, as with some 'just war' thinking.

Our parliamentary politics is about mediating different interests in a society of strangers, says Simon Barrow. But bioethical decisions confront us with the need to move beyond accommodation and confrontation to moral community.

The United States-led military offensive in Iraq has strengthened its neighbour Iran, and led to a weakening of the moral authority of the United States, US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said during a visit to Britain.