LUNCHEON - 2ND APRIL 2014

Speaker: Kate Latimer, CEO Cranlana Foundation

Topic: Why is being good so important?

Chairperson: Peter Duncan

Why is being good so important? It seems a self-evident question but we have a lot of trouble in contemporary society stating what it means to be good. In fact, in this secular age, we feel uncomfortable talking about good in people or in business. How do we define it? How do we decide what is ‘good’. In this talk, Kate Latimer suggests some of the ways we might think usefully about this.

Kate is the CEO of the Cranlana Programme, a non-aligned not-for-profit organisation established in 1993 to promote ethical practice and responsible leadership. Prior to joining Cranlana, Kate ran her own company that organised high-level political and academic discussions on immigration and settlement in Italy, London, Malaysia and South Africa, as well as in Australia. Prior to that she was a filmmaker, and her documentaries on current affairs issues and sport have been screened at festivals and on ABC and BBC television.

Synopsis Of The Presentation:

Kate Latimer, CEO of the Cranlana Programme, spoke on "Why is being good so important". It seems a self-evident question but conceals a lot of complex and difficult issues. Cranlana aims to give people in leadership positions the opportunity to think through the meaning of the good society so that they are better able to take account of it in their decision making. It uses moderated discussion of the writings of philosophers and thinkers such as Aristotle and doers such as Martin Luther King. In a lively discussion section members sought to understand such questions as how the claimed right of people to be bigots is compatible with the good society.