It doesn't do to complain

I say in the sidebar that I'm currently studying in Europe, but I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. I should be in Europe, attending the Erasmus Mundus Masters in Applied Ethics (MAE) introduction in Linköping, Sweden. Instead, I'm stuck in Auckland, New Zealand, for another week, sorting out visa trouble. You see, I've been invited to this course of study by nobody less than the European Commission, but I can't actually enter Europe. It's a tremendous inconvenvience, and a very expensive one, but there's nothing I can do about it. So, instead of sitting on my hands, I'll be using this blog to post a few comments on the articles that are being discussed at the introduction week, articles which constitute a first pass over the applied ethical literature.