Rushworth M. Kidder, Ethicist, Dies at 67 Rushworth M. Kidder, an academic-turned-journalist who founded a research institute dedicated to mapping approaches to ethical dilemmas, propounding his ideas in books, speeches and seminars, died on March 5 at a nursing home in Davie, Fla. He was 67. His daughter Heather said the cause had not been determined. Mr. Kidder, a Christian Scientist, was not treated by a doctor, she said. Mr. Kidder taught that thorny moral decisions rarely involved choosing right over wrong; rather, he said, they demanded selecting among various "right" solutions. Making ethical judgments, he said, included balancing considerations like truth versus loyalty and short-term versus long-term effects. He urged that people think through such matters regularly to achieve "ethical fitness." In 1990 he founded the Institute for Global Ethics in Rockport, Me., to spread his message through seminars and workshops at corporations and schools. The nonprofit organization also opened offices in London and New York. Mr. Kidder was its president. He wrote a dozen books, most about ethical concerns. In one, "How Good People Make Tough Choices," published in 1995, he confronted readers with hypothetical workplace situations, asking them to make decisions as a boss (addressing the reader as "you"). One example: Your office manager confesses that she stole money from the office account to buy medicine for her ailing father. Her father has died, and she offers you a check from the insurance proceeds to pay you back. After you cash the check, do you fire her or forgive her? Mr. Kidder did not give definite answers to his questions, advising that the good of an individual must be weighed against the good of an organization. But he did say that mercy was usually a higher value than justice. Former President Jimmy Carter called the book, which was revised and reissued in 2009, "a thought-provoking guide to enlightened and progressive personal behavior." Rushworth Moulton Kidder was born in Providence, R.I., on May 8, 1944. His father, George, was a biochemistry professor at Amherst College; his mother, the former Ruth Rushworth, was her husband's lab assistant. Mr. Kidder graduated with honors from Amherst and earned a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from Columbia. He taught English for 12 years at Wichita State University in Kansas. His first two books were about Dylan Thomas and E. E. Cummings. In an interview with the reference book Contemporary Authors, he said he had been interested in their capacity for writing poems of praise without cynicism or sentimentality. After leaving Wichita, he joined The Christian Science Monitor, for which he had already contributed articles. He became the newspaper's London correspondent and was later a columnist. His interest in ethics was partly inspired by a series of interviews he did for The Monitor with leading thinkers like the historian Barbara W. Tuchman. Mr. Kidder lived in Naples, Fla., where he and his wife moved last year from Lincolnville, Me. In addition to his daughter Heather, he is survived by his wife of 46 years, the former Anne Elizabeth Davidson, and another daughter, Abby. For all the nuance Mr. Kidder advocated in thinking about ethics, he could be stern in his moral judgments. When former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was awaiting trial on corruption charges in 2010, Mr. Kidder told The New York Times that the governor demonstrated society's failure to teach morals. "As such, he's the perfect outcome of our ethical indifference and a role model for the next generation," he said.