My latest piece on MercatorNet looks briefly at the Germanwings disaster, and the problem of negative morality without any corresponding moral or spiritual ideal:

The British writer and journalist G.K. Chesterton identified this morbidity within modern ethics as far back as the 19^th Century:

“A great silent collapse, an enormous unspoken disappointment, has in our time fallen on our Northern civilization.  All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions, that the most that we can do is to set up a few notice-boards at places of obvious danger, to warn men, for instance, against drinking themselves to death, or ignoring the mere existence of their neighbours.”

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the-ultimate-safeguard