Come join my next Rationally Selfish Webcast! As always, it’s on Sunday morning at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET. You can watch the webcast and join in the text chat via www.RationallySelfish.com. Greg Perkins of Objectivist Answers will be my audio co-host, as usual.

Each week, I answer questions on practical ethics and the principles of living well. I select the most popular and interesting questions from the ongoing queue of questions. Please submit your questions, as well as vote and comment on questions that you find interesting!

Here are the questions that I’ll answer this week:

• Question 1: Announcing Life-Changing New Beliefs: How should a person present new philosophic beliefs to his family and friends? When a person adopts a life-changing set of beliefs, how should he present that to family and friends? The point would not be to try to convince them to follow, but to say “look… this is what I believe, these are the principles by which I now live my life, please respect my choice to do so.”
• Question 2: The Morality of Strategic Default: Is it moral to strategically default on your mortgage? Suppose that you could continue to pay your mortgage, but you’re under water: you owe more than the house is worth. You realize that you’d save tens of thousands of dollars by defaulting. Would it be morally wrong to default, assuming that you don’t engage in any fraud or other dishonesty in doing so? Would it make a difference if you do that in today highly regulated market versus in a fully free market?
• Question 3: Swearing Before Strangers: Should you swear in front of strangers? Swearing is sometimes a great “exclamation point” when you’re telling a story or having an intense or extraordinary conversation. But, is it appropriate to swear in front of people who don’t know you very well? Is that poor manners? Would “being yourself” conflict with “putting your best foot forward” in this case?
• Question 4: Letting Friends Fail: Are there times when you shouldn’t help a friend? If you see a friend taking some action which may ultimately self-defeating, or self-destructive, but you are pretty sure they don’t have the knowledge or experience to understand the future consequences of their actions, should you allow them to learn on their own or stop them from making a mistake that you know will be disastrous?

After that, I’ll do a round of quick impromptu “Rapid Fire Questions.”

Questions that aren’t answered this week will remain in the question queue for me to answer in upcoming webcasts. So please go vote on questions that you find interesting — and don’t forget to submit your own questions.

You can listen to these webcasts later as audio-only podcasts by subscribing to the NoodleCast RSS feed:

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However, I hope that you’ll join the live webcast, because that’s more exciting and lively than the podcast. People chat merrily amongst themselves while watching the webcast. And I love the immediate feedback of a live audience — the funny quips, serious comments, and follow-up questions. So please join the live webcast when you can!

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Even if you’re unable to contribute financially, I’m grateful if you take a moment to help me spread the word about the Rationally Selfish Webcast to anyone you think might be interested. Send an e-mail about the webcast to friends, share the event for the next webcast on Facebook, and “like” the Rationally Selfish Page on Facebook.

I hope to see you on Sunday morning!